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The World Health Organization has warned that infectious diseases are “spiralling out of control” in the Gaza Strip, with only 13 of the Palestinian territory’s 36 hospitals even partially functioning.”Whether meningitis… diarrhoea, respiratory illnesses, we’re talking about a mammoth amount of work,” Hanan Balkhy, regional director for the United Nations’ health body, told AFP in Cairo. A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has raised hopes of life-saving aid and healthcare finally reaching Palestinians in Gaza after two years of war, but Balkhy warned the challenges are “unimaginable”.”We need more fuel to go into Gaza, we need more food, more medical equipment, medications, medics, doctors,” she said in an interview on Wednesday, echoing demands by international leaders for Israel to allow in a massive increase of aid.WHO data shows there are only eight health facilities, all of them partially functioning, in Gaza City — the territory’s main urban hub.The organisation says the hospitals still standing are suffering dire shortages of medical personnel, who have themselves faced famine and Israel’s relentless offensive, which has claimed nearly 68,000 lives according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers those figures reliable.For Balkhy, when people talk about repairing Gaza’s devastated hospitals, “the question is how many of them are available for rehabilitation versus (having to) rebuild all over again?””We’re talking about billions of dollars, and we’re talking about decades of work,” she said, after the territory’s healthcare was essentially “dismantled”.- ‘Very little left’ -Since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which sparked the war, Gaza’s health facilities have suffered more than 800 attacks, according to UN data.”There is very little left of the healthcare system. You have children that were born over the past two years, who many of them, I’m assuming, have received zero doses of immunisations.”The UN says nearly 42,000 people are suffering life-changing injuries, a quarter of them children.Balkhy called for patients to be able to once again “access the West Bank and Jerusalem, so that they can get the care that is available right close by, and that’s the place where they used to go for care”.Israel has severely limited permits for Palestinians to leave Gaza throughout the war, making medical evacuations nearly impossible.Mental health needs, on the other hand, have more than doubled among the more than two million Palestinians trapped under bombardment for two years, according to the WHO.Over one million people require “urgent support”, but available care falls far short.”We’re really hoping that the peace is fully sustained, so that we can start,” Balkhy said.

Two years after he survived Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel which killed 64 fellow residents of the Kfar Aza kibbutz, Avidor Schwartzman hopes his community can finally begin to overcome its pain.”We can start the healing process,” Schwartzman told AFP, even if “we know that there are a lot of people who will not come back”.On October 7, 2023, Hamas commandos stormed over the barrier separating Gaza and Israel, around two kilometres (just over a mile) away from Schwartzman’s kibbutz.The militants set about burning down homes, looting and killing, before abducting 18 people from Kfar Aza and taking them hostage into the Gaza Strip.Two of them died in captivity, while the last two to be released, Gali and Ziv Berman, were only returned by Hamas on Monday under a US-brokered deal to end the war in Gaza.It took two days for the Israeli army to regain control of the kibbutz following the October 7 attack, and the violence killed 19 soldiers.On Thursday, survivors of the attack in Kfar Aza gathered in the cemetery for a memorial to honour those killed that day.At a state ceremony in Jerusalem to mark the second anniversary of the attack under the Jewish calendar, a torch was lit in memory of a young couple from the kibbutz, Sivan Elkabetz and Naor Hasidim, both killed by militants.- ‘Gives us hope -Elkabetz’s father, Shimon Elkabetz, told AFP that the return of the surviving hostages on Monday sparked hope.But he was of the view that the Israeli army should not leave Gaza “until the last of the (dead) hostages is back to be buried in Israel”.Israel has accused Hamas of violating the terms of the ceasefire agreement, under which the militants had until noon Monday (0900 GMT) to hand over all the hostages it still held in Gaza.While Hamas handed over all 20 living hostages by the deadline, the group has only handed over nine of the 28 bodies, arguing it would need specialist equipment to retrieve the rest from Gaza’s ruins.Israel’s defence minister on Wednesday threatened to restart the offensive if Hamas did not honour the deal. Elkabetz agreed. “Our soldiers are deep inside the Strip, and that is a good thing,” he said.- ‘No home anymore’ -At the Kfar Aza memorial, people placed flowers on the tombs of victims of the Hamas attack. Others, as per Jewish custom, laid stones. On stage, survivors read out the names of the 64 victims, the noise of helicopters and drones overhead at times drowning out their voices.Batia Holin could not hide her pain for “64 of my friends are gone, murdered”.Reconstruction work has begun, though much of the kibbutz is still damaged and only a handful of residents have come back to live in Kfar Aza.Holin, who has lived in Kfar Aza for 50 years, said she was struggling to imagine what the future might hold.”I can’t go to my home because I have no home anymore. It will take more two years maybe, and it’s very difficult,” she told AFP. In April, the kibbutz opened a new neighbourhood of 16 housing units earmarked for younger people, to replace the old youth quarter destroyed in the attack.Schwartzman, at 40 a father of two, lives in the neighbourhood. His wife lost both her parents in the October 7 attack.While the road to recovery will be long, he says he is confident that others will follow and move back, like he has.Several people he knew, Schwartzman said, had been “living here for several generations, three generations, maybe even four…”So I guess this is the only place they can call home and that’s why they want to come back.”

As a fragile ceasefire holds, displaced Palestinian residents of Gaza City have returned to their homes only to find rubble, with many of them forced to camp out in makeshift shelters.In the northwest of the city, empty streets are lined with piles of concrete that once were apartment buildings before the Israel-Hamas war, with some structures completely collapsed.Hossam Majed discovered his home reduced to rubble. Amid the ruins, the 31-year-old salvaged a few belongings, including some furniture and — crucially given the shortages — a large water tank.While waiting for the rest of his family to return, he has swept aside some dust and rubble, set up a makeshift shelter and will guard what remains from potential thieves.”Even food is more expensive than in the south because it’s scarce. There’s no electricity, no water, no internet. I have to walk a kilometre and a half… just to fill two water containers,” he told AFP.Umm Rami Lubbad left her home last month to seek safety in southern Gaza, in Khan Yunis, as Israel stepped up its offensive on Gaza City in a bid to root out Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack sparked the war. She had hoped to return to her home as “it was the only remaining hope for a little stability”.But upon their return, the mother, her young child and two teenage daughters were caught by surprise.”My heart nearly stopped when I saw the house reduced to rubble,” she told AFP, adding “I was looking as far as my eyes could see — and saw nothing”.Now, Lubbad and her children are effectively homeless.”We sleep in the street regardless. I don’t have a tent,” she said, adding that neighbours took them in when artillery shelling made the outdoors too dangerous.With her children she has gathered some wood, clothing and a gas tank, hoping to use the wood for cooking or to build makeshift toilets.- No home, no supplies -“Life is extremely hard. I don’t know how long we’ll endure,” she said.She hopes tents will eventually be allowed into Gaza, which is under a strict Israeli siege.Ahmad al-Abbasi, who had fled south during the bombings, returned to find that nothing of his five-storey building remained in Gaza City.”We came back north hoping to find our homes and (rebuild our) lives. As you can see… Gaza has turned into a ghost town,” he said.In front of the ruins he has attempted to set up a makeshift tent beside a Palestinian flag fluttering from a pole.He has stacked some cinder blocks to anchor iron rods for holding up a sheet, which is meant to serve as a roof.Though the shelter stands, the wind catches the fabric and the flag, making them flap loudly.”We’re trying to salvage everything we can. We’ll try to fix even just one room or one tent to shelter ourselves, our children, and our families,” he told AFP.Mustafa Mahram, another Palestinian who returned to Gaza City, also found his three-storey house reduced to rubble. “Everything’s gone, turned to ashes… There’s no way to live here,” he lamented.Mahram has set up a tent near the remains of his house and feels his family has been “thrown into the street”.”There’s no water — no drinking water, not even salty water, no water at all,” he said.”None of the essentials of life are available — no food, nothing to drink, nothing. And as you can see, there’s nothing left but rubble.”

Turkey has deployed dozens of disaster relief experts to search for the remains of hostages still missing in Gaza, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Thursday to bring all captives’ bodies home.Under a ceasefire agreement spearheaded by US President Donald Trump, Hamas returned the last 20 surviving hostages to Israel, and said it had handed back all the bodies of deceased captives that it could access.The ceasefire also saw the war, sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, grind to a halt after two years of agony for the families of hostages, and bombardment and hunger in Gaza.The remains of 19 hostages are still unaccounted for, with Hamas saying it would need specialist recovery equipment to retrieve them from the ruins of Gaza.A Turkish defence ministry source on Thursday said that “there is already a team of 81 AFAD staff there”, referring to Turkey’s disaster relief agency, indicating that “one team will be in charge of seeking and finding the bodies”. At a state ceremony to mark the second anniversary of the October 7 attack, Netanyahu said Israel was “determined to secure the return of all hostages”.”The fight is not over yet, but one thing is clear — whoever lays a hand on us knows they will pay a very heavy price,” he said.Earlier, an Israeli group campaigning for the return of the hostages demanded that the government delay implementing the next stages of the truce if Hamas fails to return the remaining bodies.During the war, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum consistently demanded an end to the fighting to allow the return of those taken hostage during the 2023 attack.”As long as Hamas breaches the agreements and continues to hold 19 hostages, there can be no unilateral progress on Israel’s part,” the forum said.- ‘Total defeat’ -It urged the government to “immediately halt the implementation of any further stages of the agreement as long as Hamas continues to blatantly violate its obligations regarding the return of all hostages and the remains of the victims”.According to Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza, the next phases of the truce should include the disarmament of Hamas, the offer of amnesty to Hamas leaders who decommission their weapons and establishing the governance of post-war Gaza.Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday warned that if Hamas fails to return the bodies, Israel “will resume fighting and act to achieve a total defeat of Hamas, to change the reality in Gaza and achieve all the objectives of the war”.But Trump appeared to call for patience in order to safeguard the deal.”It’s a gruesome process, I almost hate to talk about it, but they’re digging, they’re actually digging,” he said of Hamas’s search for hostages’ remains.”There are areas where they are digging and they’re finding a lot of bodies… And some of those bodies have been in there a long time, and some of them are under rubble.”The families of surviving hostages were able, after two long years without their loved ones, to rejoice in their return.- ‘My children are home’ -“My children are home! Two years ago, one morning, I lost half of my family… The world collapsed on me and my family in an instant,” said Sylvia Cunio, mother of Ariel and David Cunio, who were released from captivity.But Alon Nimrodi buried his son Tamir after two agonising years when he heard no news of him.”After the monsters kidnapped you… I told your mother ‘It’s good he was taken, not killed’. I was so wrong,” Alon said as he laid his son to rest.Israel, meanwhile, returned the bodies of 30 Palestinians to Gaza on Thursday, the territory’s health ministry said.Under the ceasefire deal, Israel was to turn over the bodies of 15 Palestinians for every deceased Israeli returned.For many in Gaza, while there was relief that the bombing had stopped, the road to recovery felt impossible, given the sheer scale of the devastation.”There’s no water — no clean water, not even salty water, no water at all. No essentials of life exist — no food, no drink, nothing. And as you can see, all that’s left is rubble,” said Mustafa Mahram, who returned to Gaza City after the ceasefire.”An entire city has been destroyed.”The war killed at least 67,967 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the United Nations considers credible.The data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that more than half of the dead are women and children.Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Ikram Aioua has seen her 12-year-old son rushed to the hospital three times in the past weeks for gas poisoning.Like thousands who have turned out to protest in her southern Tunisian city of Gabes, Aioua is demanding the closure of a nearby chemical factory, blaming it for a range of serious health issues.”I was in the classroom when I felt my throat burning and my head getting heavy, then I fainted,” said Ahmed, Aioua’s son.The factory “is deadly poison”, his 40-year-old mother cried. “It must be dismantled.”Since early September Gabes has recorded an increasing number of respiratory distress and other health problems, sparking fresh protests.Other students in Ahmed’s school at Chott Essalem, a coastal neighbourhood not far from the phosphate processing plant, have also complained of ailments linked to the factory’s pollution.Emna Mrabet said her chest recently started to burn before she “vomited”. Her eyes were swollen as she spoke with AFP, visibly weary after her release from the hospital.Her mother said she would hold her from going back to school “until the authorities find a solution”.Several residents have recently been hospitalised for gas poisoning and other issues, with 122 on Tuesday alone, according to the authorities.- ‘Gas leaks’ -Locals in Gabes have said the factory, which processes phosphate to make fertilisers, has been emitting more toxic gases into the air lately.That comes on top of the solid radioactive waste the plant, opened in 1972, discharges into the Mediterranean.The sea has taken a dark grey hue, with the air smelling acrid about anywhere in the city of some 400,000 inhabitants.Ahmed Guefrech, a local assembly member, blamed the toxic gas leaks on “dilapidated units installed 53 years ago, with run-down equipment and no maintenance”.”The leaks are not new, but their increased frequency has made them even more dangerous.”Although the Tunisian state had promised in 2017 to begin the plant’s gradual closure, authorities earlier this year said they would ramp up production instead.Authorities did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.The leaks were also driven now by “an increase in production that exceeds the plant’s condition”, Guefrech added, insisting that “dismantling” it was the only solution.Khayreddine Debaya, the coordinator of local campaign group Stop Pollution, agreed.According to Stop Pollution and studies, the waste dumped by the plant has contaminated beaches and farmland, devastated local fishing and contributed to unusually high rates of respiratory disease and cancer.Residents have also ramped up rallies, usually called by Stop Pollution, to demand closing the plant, with police at times using tear gas to disperse gatherings.- ‘Dismantle’ -Others said they were now taking the issue to court. A group of lawyers representing students who suffered poisonings is planning to sue the Tunisian Chemical Group, which runs the factory.”A first complaint will be filed soon to suspend the operations of the polluting units,” said lawyer Mehdi Telmoudi, who heads the defence committee.”A second complaint will seek to dismantle the group altogether,” he added.But the issue remains politically sensitive in a country where phosphate mining and processing are rare economic assets.President Kais Saied has vowed to revive the sector long hindered by unrest and underinvestment, calling it a “pillar of national economy”.Taking advantage of rising world fertiliser prices, the government now wants the plant’s output to nearly quintuple by 2030, from less than three million tonnes a year to 14 million tonnes.Last Saturday, citing maintenance failures, the president dispatched representatives from the energy and environment ministries to Gabes.But many believe there is little to be done to modernise the decades-old plant.”Nothing will change and the plant that’s killing us will stay,” said Radhia Sarray, a relative of Ahmed, Aioua’s 12-year-old son.The 58-year-old said she, too, was hospitalised recently for poisoning and that she was already afflicted with cancer.

After two agonising years of uncertainty following their son’s abduction to Gaza, Israeli soldier Tamir Nimrodi’s parents finally laid him to rest Thursday, after his body was returned under a ceasefire with Hamas.Nimrodi, 18 at the time of Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, was doing his military service at a base near the Erez Crossing into Gaza when he was seized.Since then, he was one of the few hostages for whom no proof of life had been given.His body was returned to Israel on Tuesday evening under the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas brokered by US President Donald Trump.”How many times did I speak about you, how many times did I tell your story, how many times did I cry out, and now I can’t find words,” said his father, Alon Nimrodi, his voice choking as he stood by the freshly covered grave.Prior to his burial, Israeli soldiers marched in step ahead of his coffin at the military cemetery in Kfar Saba, in central Israel, where he was laid to rest.Verses recited by a rabbi accompanied the procession as thousands of mourners, many in uniform, stood in solemn silence, an AFP correspondent reported.Rows of soldiers in khaki uniforms and green berets surrounded the site, some of them from COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry unit responsible for civilian coordination in the Palestinian territories.”Tamir, my dear son, I never objected when you enlisted,” Alon Nimrodi said.”After the monsters kidnapped you… I told your mother ‘It’s good he was taken, not killed’. I was so wrong.”Fighting back tears, he delivered a message directly to the Israeli authorities.”You have the responsibility to do everything until the last hostage returns!” he said.Hamas and its allied groups still hold the remains of 19 hostages in Gaza.On the day of the attack, militants took 251 people to the territory. Most of them have been freed under three truces during the course of the war.Earlier Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to secure the return of the bodies of the remaining captives.- ‘Agony’ -Nimrodi, the eldest in three siblings, was seized “in his pyjamas and unarmed,” his mother previously told AFP.He managed to send her a brief message about rocket fire before being taken with two other soldiers.Since then, his image had become one of the symbols of the hostage crisis, appearing on banners and signs along the road leading to his home village of Nirit, near the Green Line separating Israel from the occupied West Bank.For months his family joined rallies and public campaigns urging the government to prioritise the hostages’ release as they waited for any sign that Nimrodi was alive.In March, his mother lamented to AFP that “the issue of the hostages is no longer a priority in Israel.””I can only imagine the unbearable pain and agony of the family, who for two years didn’t know what had become of their son,” said Hadas, a 68-year-old Israeli attending the funeral though she had never met Nimrodi.Throughout the war, Hamas released sporadic videos of several hostages showing them alive but clearly under duress, urging Israel to halt its military campaign.The first was published on October 16, 2023, featuring French-Israeli hostage Mia Shem.”Those videos were psychological warfare,” said David, 55, who declined to give his last name.He blamed not just Hamas but also the Israeli government for the trauma the families of hostages were suffering.”These two years have been deeply painful — the humiliating hostage releases, the footage of captives, all of it,” he said.”I just hope for elections soon, to get rid of this government and its extremists. I just want to live in peace.”