Israel’s war on Gaza forces Palestinians to rely on ‘Stone Age’ toilets

Deir Al-Balah, Gaza – Eman Mahmoud Shamia has been uprooted several times since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, before finally settling into a new home – a tent in a camp.

It provides rudimentary shelter for 33-year-old Eman, her husband, Yahya Shamia, 50, and their five children, all under 11, but it lacks many of the basic amenities her old home provided.

With the help of a worker who specialised in digging soakaway underground drainage pits, the community in the camp built a “municipal toilet”. It provides relief b ut Shamia said it reminds her of the Stone Age.

There is little in the way of privacy, particularly for women and children, and for some it is difficult to use or access, particularly for her husband, who suffers from an advanced stage of lung cancer.

“I am deprived of my basic right to have a proper toilet seat in my tent. This is exhausting for me as a woman and a mother of five children and my husband is sick and unable to use the makeshift toilet. What is happening to us is madness,” Shamia told Al Jazeera.

“I cannot believe this is our situation. Sometimes I feel like I am going crazy. How did the toilet become like this and how did the door become just a piece of cloth?”

While hundreds of thousands have lost their homes in Gaza, often overlooked are the daily struggles the displaced face in maintaining some level of dignity in their tent towns. The primitive communal toilets they often rely on are an example.

The ongoing Israeli siege has seen the price of sanitation supplies shoot up with a used toilet seat now costing between 1,500 ($503) and 2,000 shekels ($671).