Khan Younis, Gaza – Sewage is flowing through Gaza’s streets as all major sanitation services have stopped functioning, raising the alarming prospect of a huge wave of gastrointestinal and infectious diseases among local populations – including cholera.
For Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, finding clean drinking water has become almost impossible.
At a school run by the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Khan Younis, Osama Saqr, 33, tried to fill water bottles for his thirsty children.
He took a sip and grimaced in disgust at the salty taste of the liquid, before letting out a long sigh.
“It’s polluted and unsuitable, but my children still drink it, there is no alternative,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Saqr’s one-year-old son suffers from diarrhea but cannot find medicine to treat him in hospitals or pharmacies. “Even if I find it, the problem remains, the water is polluted and salty, unfit for consumption,” he said.
“I’m afraid that I will eventually lose one of my children because of this poisoning.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded more than 44,000 cases of diarrhea and 70,000 acute respiratory infections, but the real numbers could be much higher. The UN agency said on Friday it was extremely concerned that rains and flooding during the approaching winter season would further worsen an already dire situation.
“We hear of several hundred people per toilet in UNRWA centers and these are overflowing, so people are defecating in the open,” Richard Brennan, regional emergency director for the region, told Tel Aviv Tribune from the Eastern Mediterranean to WHO. “They have to find a place to go to the toilet in the park where they are staying. This is a huge risk to public health and also very humiliating.”
Brennan said overcrowding, lack of solid waste management, poor sanitation and open defecation all contributed to the spread of diseases including diarrhea, respiratory infections and skin infections including scabies.
UN agencies have warned that the collapse of water and sanitation services could even trigger episodes of cholera if urgent humanitarian aid is not provided. If nothing changes, “more and more people will get sick and the risk of major outbreaks will increase significantly,” Brennan said.
Out of gas
Gaza’s critical water and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed by Israeli bombing or is running out of fuel. In the southern governorates of Deir el-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah, all 76 water wells stopped functioning, along with two main drinking water plants and 15 sewage pumping stations, according to UNRWA.
The WHO estimates that the average person in Gaza currently consumes only 3 liters of water per day for drinking and sanitation. This compares to the agency’s recommended minimum of 7.5 liters in an emergency.
The shutdown of essential services, including water desalination plants, wastewater treatment and hospitals, has led to a 40 percent increase in cases of diarrhea among people sheltering in UNRWA schools, the agency said. It is estimated that around 70 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents – more than half of whom are children – no longer have access to clean water.
On Wednesday, Israeli authorities allowed just over 23,000 liters (6,000 gallons) of fuel into the Gaza Strip via Egypt. But they have limited the use of this fuel to trucks carrying what little aid arrives. UNRWA said it needs 160,000 liters (42,000 gallons) of fuel per day for basic humanitarian operations.
“This fuel cannot be used for the overall humanitarian response, including for medical and water facilities or for UNRWA work,” the agency’s commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, said during a press conference. “It is appalling that fuel continues to be used as a weapon of war. This seriously cripples our work and the delivery of aid to the Palestinian communities in Gaza. »
The Gaza Health Ministry warned that the lack of drinking water caused by the fuel shortage was particularly endangering the lives of 1,100 kidney failure patients, including 38 children.
Among them is Samer Abdeen’s brother, Muhammad, 22, who suffers from acute renal colic due to poor water quality. “When he is in a lot of pain, he screams,” Abdeen, 40, told Tel Aviv Tribune as he walked the streets of Khan Younis looking for bottled water to buy.
With bottled water now expensive and very difficult to find, he refused to give up his search.
“I don’t want to lose him in this unjust war,” he said.
Die of thirst
Samir Asaad, 60, from Deir el-Balah camp, suffers from high blood pressure, made worse by drinking salt water. “I heat the water over a fire to drink so I don’t taste its saltiness,” he said.
“They kill us from thirst or force us to drink water so that we die anyway,” he said, referring to the Israeli siege of Gaza.
Humanitarian officials are calling for more help to enter Gaza. The World Food Program warned on Thursday that food and water supplies were almost non-existent in Gaza and civilians faced immediate risk of dehydration and starvation.
Some residents had to dig wells to extract water, even though it was contaminated by sewage and solid waste that accumulated untreated in the streets. Asaad said his family prefers to queue for hours to refill bottles at gas stations, but they are under no illusion that the water there will be safer to drink.
Umi al-Abadla, deputy director general of primary care at the Gaza Health Ministry, said water arriving at the gas station used to be treated before being pumped, but this is no longer possible due to lack of fuel.
“Due to the power outage, water is being distributed from random wells with contaminated water,” he said. “This caused diarrhea in children, more than the annual average. »
He added that the lack of personal hygiene resulting from mass displacement was causing the spread of skin diseases as well as viral diseases, including chickenpox, and increasing the threat of disease outbreaks, including cholera.
Drinking dirty sea water
Desperate to quench their thirst, some Gazans have turned to seawater.
But with sewage systems and wastewater treatment plants out of commission due to lack of fuel, more than 130,000 cubic meters of sewage are dumped into the Mediterranean Sea every day.
Salwa Islam, 45, said she and her family went to the sea to swim and sometimes drink. “I have to drink sea water and people here do it too,” she told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“Where is our right to water? What is this war that prevents all citizens from eating, drinking and meeting all the other necessities of life? she says.
“Is this a punishment for the children, who ask every day when the war will end? They take to the streets and ask for bottles of water to drink. But there is no drinking water in Gaza.”