Fears are growing that people in Gaza are beginning to dehydrate to death as clean water runs out, while Israeli airstrikes continue to pound the Palestinian territory of 2.3 million residents amid a total blockade on food, electricity, medicine and fuel.
The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said on Tuesday that Gaza’s last seawater desalination plant had shut down, bringing the risk of further deaths and waterborne diseases such as cholera and dysentery. Six water wells, three water pumping stations and one water reservoir – which collectively served more than 1.1million people – are also out of action, it said.
Israel cut off its sole water pipeline to Gaza, along with the fuel and electricity that power water and sewage plants, in the wake of the Hamas attacks that killed 1,400 people. UN experts have condemned the Israeli bombardment and blockade as “collective punishment”, which is a war crime.
After 16 years of a joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade, imposed after Hamas seized control of the exclave in 2007, clean water was already one of the most pressing concerns in the strip. Almost 97% of the water in Gaza’s sole aquifer is not potable; without proper maintenance and with Israeli restrictions on imports and electricity, sewage treatment plants were overwhelmed years ago. Untreated waste has flowed directly into the Mediterranean for more than a decade.
Now, desperate civilians find themselves consuming the contaminated tap water, or digging new wells too close to the sea to drink and use dirty, salty water. “People are trying to fetch water out of dangerous places, like the wells at mosques. In fact, children were killed [by airstrikes] while trying to drink water at a mosque a week ago,” said Jamil al-Meqdad, a writer and researcher in Gaza City.
“Water for daily use, washing, dishwashing etc was completely cut because there is no electricity for generators to pump water … And the water truck only comes about once every three days, so no one can get enough. The only remaining water is being distributed in small amounts so that each person can have a small share.”
Access to at least 50 litres of water per person per day is the minimum level set by the World Health Organization. Most people in Gaza are now believed to be surviving on three, the UN says.
Dehydration quickly leads to fatigue, dizziness and confusion before organs such as the kidneys shut down, causing coma and death. Severe dehydration must be treated quickly for patients to recover: it can cause permanent brain and other organ damage.
On Tuesday, US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said during his second visit to Israel since the crisis began that the US and Israel had “agreed to develop a plan that will enable humanitarian aid from donor nations and multilateral organisations to reach civilians in Gaza”.
But as night fell, no progress appeared to have been made on the opening of the Rafah crossing, the civilian entry point between the strip and Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, for any civilians to leave or aid to go in.
The bombardment has continued without relenting. At least 49 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes that hit homes in Rafah and Khan Younis, Gaza’s interior ministry said. And on Tuesday evening, reports suggested hundreds had been killed by a strike on a hospital in Gaza City.
The new war in Gaza – the fifth since 2007 – is also the most fatal, with more than 3,000 Palestinians killed in bombings that, combined with the fuel and medical supplies shortages, have also left the strip’s already crumbling medical infrastructure unable to function.
An unprecedented evacuation order for more than half the strip’s population to leave Gaza City and move to the southern half of the territory has been complicated by bombings on routes identified as safe and conflicting and confusing information about windows for passage. The WHO called the order a “death sentence” for the thousands of sick and injured.
Water access is crucial for sanitation and hospitals. “Water is needed to ensure sanitary conditions on inpatient wards, in operation rooms, and emergency departments. It is essential for the prevention of hospital associated infections and for the prevention of outbreaks,” the WHO said.
An Israeli water pipeline was opened for three hours in Khan Younis on Monday, serving half of the town’s population – which was 100,000 and has swelled to unknown proportions in the wake of the evacuation directive. It appears to have had little effect, however, as a lack of fuel and damaged pipelines have made it difficult to transport and pump.
UNRWA said 400,000 displaced people were crowded into schools and other UN-run buildings in southern Gaza, and it had only one litre of water a day for its trapped staff members.
Mohammad Saqr, a resident of Khan Younis, told Reuters: “Because of the large number of people, there’s no water. So I thought I would volunteer, come with a rickshaw and carry the water from the far away areas, the dangerous areas. Now, we’re filling in salt water, I’m ready to drink from the salt water – what else can we do?”
