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Palestinian
children, who fled their houses during an Israeli offensive, fill bottles with
water at a United Nations-run school, sheltering displaced Palestinians, in
Gaza City © Mohammed Salem / Reuters
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More than 90 percent of
the Gaza Strip’s water is undrinkable. The rest is quickly running out. A
combination of factors is rapidly depriving the population of this most basic
of needs. RT investigated day-to-day life under these conditions. Just one fresh water
source exists today, according to the locals – a coastal aquifer beneath the
ground that is shared with Israel and Egypt. But Gaza is situated downstream
from Israel, and Palestinians accuse the Jewish state of using the situation to
its advantage, employing water deprivation as a tactic against the civilian
population.
The
grim water statistics are part of a recent UN report on Gaza, which says the
strip will become uninhabitable by 2020. A number of reasons compound the
problems, according to the document by the United Nations Conference on Trade
and Development (UNCTAD).
The
Gaza Strip’s GDP dropped 15 percent in 2014, with 72 percent of households
suffering extremely low food security and unemployment at a record high of 44
percent. Further stress was added by relentless IDF assaults. With three
military operations in the last six years, coupled with eight years of economic
blockade, prospects for recovery are looking very bleak.
RT.com report continues:
The
UN says that 500,000 people have been displaced in Gaza as a result of last
year's IDF operation alone. More than 20,000 Palestinian homes were destroyed,
and 148 schools and 15 hospitals and 45 primary health-care centers were
severely damaged. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
But
worse still is when the populace is deprived of the prime source of life –
water. Without it, no reconstruction and no rebuilding of lives can take place.
Medicine, sanitation, hygiene and crucial facilities that depend on water all
suffer.
RT
investigated the extent of the hardship under these conditions.
“We
can’t drink it, cook with it, or wash in the kitchen with it… we are forced to
buy all the clean water separately,” said Umm Ibrahim Amna Abdel’al, as she
stood in her kitchen, little more four bare cement walls and a sink.
A
delivery pickup truck trundled through the streets outside with a water tank
sitting in the back.
“The
last war on Gaza, of course, resulted in the destruction of some of the
infrastructure, the water holes and the pumping stations were [heavily hit.]
More than 50 percent of the water infrastructure could not be accessed,” said
Mahmoud Elkhafif, UNCTAD's special coordinator for assistance to the
Palestinian people.
“Part,
of course, vanished,” he added.
RT’s
Lizzie Phelan tasted what remains of the Strip’s water for herself: “This
coffee tastes like it has salt not sugar in it. That’s because the water that’s
used to wash it – like much of Gaza’s water – is contaminated with sea water.”
The
woman went on to describe how “tiny kids suffer from cramps and colic” – a
syndrome commonly associated with stomach infections.
“See
my hand?” she pointed to the irritated skin on her palm. “It is because of the
salty water. I have a skin infection. The water is full of salt. It is like
sewage.”
And
salt isn’t the only problem. The water coming into homes is also full of
nitrate – a carcinogenic. The levels rose even higher last year, during
Israel’s bombardment of sewage pipes and clean water pipes. Now, the two
chemicals have mixed.
But
even though the water is filthy, Gazans pay an exorbitantly for it.
Elkhafif
put it bluntly: “Gaza suffers a catastrophic issue with water quality and water
supply. And it’s a shame on the world that they are still watching this.”
Unless the situation is
resolved, the Strip stands on the brink of a full-scale humanitarian
catastrophe much greater than any airstrikes can cause.
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