Fears of disease spreading in Gaza caused by dirty water were mounting today amid renewed warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian territory.
The UN relief and works agency for Palestinian refugees said the “vast majority” of Gaza no longer had running water and that people would die unless clean supplies are rapidly restored.
“It is absolutely fundamental that we are allowed to bring in fuel into the Gaza strip for the pumping stations across the strip so that clean water resumes across Gaza,” spokeswoman Juliette Touma told the BBC.
She added that the territory’s last working seawater desalination plant shut down yesterday and disclosed that only 14 per cent of people in Gaza had received water when a supply line opened briefly for three hours in the southern city of Khan Younis yesterday.
The renewed warning came as hundreds of lorries full of emergency supplies continued to wait in Egypt for a possible opening of the Rafah crossing into Gaza.
Efforts to secure Israeli permission for this to happen have so far been rebuffed, but negotiations continue as pressure for humanitarian relief for civilians caught up in the conflict intensifies.
Meanwhile, as Israel warned that large numbers of Gazans had failed to heed its demand to move south ahead of its anticipated ground offensive against Hamas, a doctor in the main hospital in Gaza City highlighted the dire conditions there.
“The doctors have brought their families into the hospital for safety.
“I slept on an operating room table last night,” surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu- Sittah told the Guardian in a phone interview.
“People are absolutely terrified, and so they think this is the safest place. The crowding is going to lead to an infectious disease outbreak. There is an impending public health catastrophe at Shifa hospital.”
Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said he also feared a “looming humanitarian crisis” in Gaza and that he hoped that Israel would soon respond to requests for the opening of the Rafah crossing into Egypt from Gaza.
“If there is a plan, I’m sure that it will be possible for the Egyptians to agree to it opening,” the minister told Times Radio.
Mr Mitchell said that some form of “safe zone” in southern Gaza would also be required to deliver the aid that was needed.
