Palestinian Water Authority says Israel reduced supply in West Bank
The authority says, in a statement carried by the Wafa news agency, that Israel’s Mekorot water company has reduced the volume of water allocated to the Hebron and Bethlehem governorates in the occupied West Bank.
The statement says approximately 35 percent less water was pumped from the main source for the two governorates, Deir Shaar.
The Palestinian Water Authority stressed that this reduction, coming at the beginning of summer’s hot and dry season, will exacerbate the yearly water shortage experienced by communities in the West Bank.
A million people in Gaza could face highest level of starvation in July: UN report
If war continues unabated, more than one million Palestinians in Gaza could suffer the highest level of starvation by mid-July, according to a report by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
That would be an increase from 677,000 people who were experiencing famine-level conditions in March, as documented by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.
The joint WHO-FAO report said hunger in Gaza is being exacerbated by intensive restrictions on aid access and the collapse of its local food system. “In the absence of a cessation of hostilities and increased access, the impact on mortality and the lives of the Palestinians now, and in future generations, will increase markedly with every day, even if famine is avoided in the near term,” the report said.
Children in Gaza dealing with ‘horrific reality of loss, trauma’: UNICEF
Saleem Oweis, spokesperson for UNICEF’s Middle East and North Africa office, says children in Gaza are “forced to deal with the horrific reality of loss, of trauma, of total destruction”.
“The whole story is even darker than what we see. [The trauma] runs deeper as they grow up,” he told Al Jazeera.
Oweis said that before October 7, about 5,000 children in Gaza needed some kind of mental health support. Today, all children in Gaza need mental health support and, in many cases, specialised support because the war has had “a profound impact on their psychological wellness”.
“The services on the ground are almost nonexistent. The only psychiatric hospital in Gaza has been out of service early on in this escalation, and that means the basic needs of mental health can’t be met,” he said.
As long as children continue to witness and experience the war, “it’s really hard to deal with the trauma.”
“The first of the eight principles of trauma is to remove the person from the environment of the trauma. That’s impossible in Gaza. There’s no place that feels safe,” Oweis said.
