A displaced Palestinian woman sits with children outside a tent in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 27, 2023. (Photo by AFP)

Residents of the besieged Gaza Strip, who have so far survived Israel’s 12 weeks of constant bombardment of their homeland, are now facing the growing threat of infectious diseases, the United Nations warns.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report that the spread of diseases in Gaza has increased, especially due to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in the southern part of the coastal enclave.

Israel’s brutal onslaught on the Palestinian territory that began on Oct. 7 has so far displaced some 85 percent of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million residents and sparked a humanitarian crisis that has left a quarter of Gaza’s population starving.

According to OCHA report, about 180,000 people have been diagnosed with upper respiratory infections, with more than 136,000 cases of diarrhea recorded among the population.

At least 55,400 cases of lice and scabies and 5,330 cases of chickenpox have also been recorded.

The situation, OCHA said, has increased pressure on the already overwhelmed health system in the Palestinian territory, where only 13 out of 36 hospitals are partially functional.

Earlier this week, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned of a severe shortage of food in Gaza hospitals, which also serve as shelters for displaced people in the territory.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has now assigned its teams to educate children on how to maintain hygiene despite the water scarcity.

Due to the spread of diseases and epidemics among displaced individuals in shelter centers, especially children, the PRCS Community Work teams have undertaken awareness activities with displaced children at the PRCS’s headquarters in Khan Yunis, it wrote on X.

Israel imposed a total siege on the coastal enclave since it launched its onslaught on the Gaza Strip. The blockade has deprived the population of Gaza of food and water.

The United Nations expressed frustration at how life-saving aid is being hampered from entering the besieged coastal enclave. The persistent difficulty in getting humanitarian relief into the territory comes as a UN-backed report said last week that the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with 576,600 people at catastrophic - or starvation - levels.