Water Shortage Deepens Suffering In War-torn Gaza

GAZA, Aug 7 (Bernama-Xinhua) -- For months, the six-member family of Palestinian man Emad Abu Hamad from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip has been reeling from their daily suffering caused by the ongoing war, Xinhua reported. 

When Emad returned to his house, he was shocked that it was destroyed. He decided to build his tent upon the ruins amid a lack of basics like water, food and electricity. To get drinking water and food, the 32-year-old father and his kids have to wait in long queues for many hours every day.

"In the past, I used to buy food freely and buy desalinated water from the shops," he told Xinhua, "but now sometimes I am forced to get the salt water and to drink it, which negatively affects our health."

Every morning, people in the Gaza Strip queue for hours under the burning sun to fill bottles and jerrycans with drinking water, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on social media platform X in July.

"Then many of them have to walk long distances carrying heavy weights in the summer heat. This exhausting routine repeats again and again in Gaza," UNRWA added.

Fresh water was already scarce in the besieged coastal enclave before the war, and the problem has been exacerbated by a hot and dry summer, the tightening of the blockade, and the severe damage to infrastructure caused by the war. The struggle to obtain clean drinking water tells the extent to which a war has destroyed the daily life in Gaza.

In the strip, about 67 per cent of water and sanitation facilities and infrastructure have been destroyed or damaged due to conflict-related activities, UNRWA said in June.

The range of water availability and consumption in the Gaza Strip is between two and nine litres per capita per day. However, the minimum amount of water needed in an emergency is 15 litres per capita per day, according to the World Health Organization.

Water shortage has also led to many other difficulties. For example, mothers in Gaza do not have clean water to mix powdered infant formula and have to take rainwater or salty water from contaminated wells. Some children can only take baths in small tubs, with the water that has been used to wash dishes.

Health risks mounted as well. UNRWA said in May that overcrowded living conditions and limited access to clean water have heightened the risk of infectious diseases, and rising cases of acute hepatitis and various forms of diarrhoea have been reported.

Evidence of poliovirus type 2 in sewage samples taken from the Gaza Strip was found in tests carried out in Israel, the Israeli Ministry of Health said in July. It has raised concerns about the virus's presence in this area.

Amjad al-Ghoul, whose home was destroyed in an Israeli operation, was trying to set up a temporary tent beside the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza strip.

All the shelters are overcrowded with displaced people, and the situation there has become unimaginable, he said while trying to remove the wastewater surrounding his tent.

"What are the faults of children in all these? They survive the war, but they will die from diseases caused by environmental and health disasters," al-Ghoul said with distress.

-- BERNAMA-XINHUA