DUBAI, December 13. /TASS/. At least 360,000 cases of infectious diseases have been recorded in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV channel reported quoting the Palestinian Health Ministry.

According to the news outlet, as a result of Israel’s military operation, temporary accommodation sites are overcrowded housing about 1.9 mln people.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) had registered cases of meningitis, chickenpox, jaundice and upper respiratory tract infections among refugees.

Al Jazeera noted that only 11 out of 36 Gaza Strip hospitals continue to admit patients on a limited basis, with only one medical facility operating in the northern part of the Palestinian enclave.

On Sunday, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip is collapsing with ideal conditions for diseases to spread having shaped in the enclave and the situation can only exacerbate. He pointed out that currently in the Gaza Strip "on average, there is one shower unit for every 700 people, and one toilet for every 150 people."

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip. Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel has declared a state of war readiness; announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians; and began delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well.