They don’t even care to hide the genocide anymore.

It could spread from other places where it exists. Syria would be the most likely source given its geographic proximity.

Alternatively, there are vaccines that use a semi-disabled live virus. While normally harmless, in war with lots of opportunities for transmission and many many people with weakened immune systems, it is possible for it to mutate back into the dangerous form of the virus. This was known to happen in the US in the last few years.

There are two types of polio vaccine: inactivated polio virus (given by a shot) and oral polio virus (OPV). OPV is a lot easier to give in rural and impoverished areas, or areas where it may be difficult for healthcare workers to get access. However, because it's given orally and because it contains a very weak but live form of polio virus, there's the chance that the recipient (while immune themselves) may continue to replicate and carry the virus in their intestinal tract. They may then pass the virus in their feces.

In an area with a functioning sewage system, this is generally a negligible risk. In an area where everyone is vaccinated and has a functioning immune system, this is generally a negligible risk. In an area where possibly not everyone is vaccinated, or where people's bodies are starting to break down due to starvation, and where the sewage system has been deliberately blown up, this is almost inevitable.

This is also intentional. In the concentration camps, a significant portion of the deaths were due to diseases that ripped through the camps, where the inmates were severely and deliberately malnourished, chronically overworked, had minimal protection from the elements, and were provided little hygiene or healthcare. The only difference with Gaza is that it's a bigger camp, and instead of being overworked, the inmates are repeatedly forced to move from one area to another to another.

The sewage system and water mains are Hamas

Riiiiiight. The country bombing the other country back to the stone age isn’t responsible for this.

how

Have you seen what Gaza looks like recently? It’s fucking leveled.

I tried to believe this was satire, and it downvoted wrongly, but checking @ms.lane comments made me sure it’s not. Boo.

The destruction and control of water infrastructure is deliberate

In 1967, Israel seized control of all water resources in the newly occupied territories. To this day, it retains exclusive control over all the water resources that lie between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, with the exception of a short section of the coastal aquifer that runs under the Gaza Strip. Israel uses the water as it sees fit, ignoring the needs of Palestinians in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip to such an extent that both areas suffer from a severe water shortage. In each of them, residents are not supplied enough water; in Gaza, even the water that is supplied is substandard and unfit for drinking

Israel has been holding the Gaza Strip under blockade for more than a decade, since June 2007. It does not allow any materials in that it considers “dual purpose”, i.e., that can be used for either civilian or military purposes. This includes construction materials, such as cement and iron, and other raw materials. All these are needed to repair Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure, which were heavily damaged by Israeli bombings, especially in Operation Cast Lead (which began in late 2008) and Operation Protective Edge (the summer of 2014).

The coastal aquifer, on which residents of Gaza depend for water, has been polluted by over-pumping and wastewater contamination, making 97% of the water pumped from it and supplied to homes unsafe to drink. As there are no other water sources available, the over-pumping continues and the aquifer is on the brink of collapse. Residents have no choice but to cut back on drinking and buy desalinated water from private vendors. Yet an estimated 68% of this water is also polluted, increasing the risk of diseases spreading among the population.

• B’TSelem