Since Israel began its brutal offensive and blockade of the Gaza Strip on October 7, the more than two million inhabitants of the Palestinian enclave have seen their water, food and other basic supplies reduced to almost non-existent. In the case of water, 94% less is reaching Gaza than before the war, that is, 4.74 liters per person per day, which is equivalent to less than a third of the minimum amount recommended in emergency situations, as reported by the organization Oxfam Intermón in a report published this Thursday.
The NGO has documented the destruction of infrastructure in Gaza over the past nine months, with Israeli attacks damaging or destroying five water and sanitation facilities every three days. In addition, Israel has destroyed 70% of the sewage pumps and all treatment plants, as well as all desalination plants and 88% of the wells, according to data from Oxfam Intermón.
In addition to the destruction of water and electricity infrastructure, the Israeli army is also restricting the entry of spare parts and fuel (needed to operate the water plants and pumps), which has caused water production to drop by 84%. At the same time, external supplies from Israel’s national water company, Mekorot (which supplied 12% of Gaza’s water before the conflict), have been cut by 78%. The Tel Aviv government has thus kept the promise it made just days after launching its offensive against Gaza: “No electrical switch will be turned on, no water pipe will be opened and no fuel truck will enter” the Palestinian enclave.
“We are fighting against human animals and we are acting accordingly,” declared the Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, at the time, to justify the cutting off of water and electricity supplies, and the blocking of basic supplies. These words may be evidence that the Israeli government is using water deprivation as a weapon of war, according to Oxfam Intermón. In addition, its report has included the opinion of experts who consider that the systematic attacks against infrastructure indicate that there are “coordinated efforts to paralyze the water supply to Gaza.”
“We have already seen Israel use collective punishment and hunger as a weapon of war,” laments Lama Abdul Samad, Water and Sanitation Specialist at Oxfam Intermón. “Now we see it doing the same with water, and the deadly consequences are already taking place. But deliberately restricting access to water is not a new tactic. The Israeli government has been depriving the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza of safe and sufficient water for many years,” she added in a statement.
For her part, Meraa, a member of the organization’s team in Gaza, says that for months “no water comes out of the tap.” “People have to walk at least 300 meters to fill one or two jugs of water and long queues form because of the limited amount available,” she explains. Entire families, including children and the elderly, have to wait for hours in the sun and repeat this process several times a day. Meraa says that since May, no personal hygiene products, such as soap or shampoo, have entered Gaza, and she has decided to cut her hair because she could not keep it clean. The woman admits to being “privileged” because she can access water more easily than most Gazans, who “are denied their basic right,” she says.
Impact on health and the future
In its report, Oxfam Intermón highlights that the extreme lack of clean water and sanitation is having a major impact on the health of Gazans: more than a quarter (26%) of the enclave’s population has fallen seriously ill as a result of easily preventable diseases.
Diseases related to lack of water and sanitation have skyrocketed in Gaza, with 727,909 cases recorded by the end of May, of which 485,300 were acute diarrhoea (and of these, 112,880 in children under five years old). In these circumstances, Oxfam Intermón warns that there is a “substantial” risk of a cholera outbreak in Gaza, even in the hypothetical case that the violence ceases. When a ceasefire is declared, it will still be “likely” that thousands of people will die from diseases related to water and sanitation, because the reconstruction of the infrastructure and the improvement of the health system “will not be fast enough to save Palestinian lives.”
In addition to the time needed to rebuild the infrastructure and restore sanitation and water services, the report also includes estimates made by the World Bank in January this year that $503 million would be needed to rehabilitate the city. The environmental cost of contaminated water sources in Gaza, which before the conflict was largely supplied by underground reserves and springs, as well as desalinated seawater, must also be taken into account.
Source: www.eldiario.es
