Maya Rosen writes:

Since October 7th, Israel has severely reduced the entry of food, water, and fuel into Gaza, successfully creating what global health expert Yara Asi described as “a dire human-made humanitarian catastrophe” characterized by mass hunger, thirst, homelessness, and lack of medical services. As months pass without any meaningful relief, these conditions have produced “the perfect storm for disease,” in the words of United Nations Children’s Fund spokesperson James Elder. On January 2nd, the WHO announced that there are currently 424,639 cases of infectious diseases in Gaza. Since such official counts only represent those who were able to make it to a clinic or hospital, experts assume that the true rates are much higher. A half million infectious disease cases would still have overwhelmed Gaza’s healthcare system before October 7th, though many would have been treatable with food, water, and medical care. But today, amid an ongoing assault that has destroyed 27 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals, as well as the very foundations of the enclave’s public health—in the form of food, water, and shelter—epidemics are likely to mean mass death. “You don’t need overt bloodshed to cause significant violence that ends people’s lives,” Asi told Jewish Currents. “Many people will die unnecessary deaths due to deprivation.”

This concern has a firm historical basis: In most wars, including in Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, and Darfur, far more people die of disease and starvation than through direct military assault. Indeed, according to public health scholar Barry Levy, indirect health-related deaths—which are seldom discussed when reporting the death toll of a war—can outnumber direct deaths by more than 15 to 1. In Gaza, such deaths are likely to keep increasing even if there is a ceasefire. Public health scholar Devi Sridhar recently estimated that, barring a dramatic shift which includes a resuscitation of the health system, half a million people—a quarter of Gaza’s population—could die from preventable health causes in the coming year. [Continue reading…]