Lack of access to water in Gaza ‘critical’, hunger ‘catastrophic’, UN warns
There is “critically low” access to water in Gaza and “catastrophic hunger” is affecting a significant portion of the population, while there are only two “stabilisation centres” for severely malnourished children, UN agencies warn.
The latest Gaza situation update from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also reports that 142 Palestinian people were reported killed and 396 injured in Israeli attacks between Monday and Friday afternoon.
Due to the rising lack of security in the Gaza Strip, there are currently no international emergency medical teams operating in southern Rafah or the north of the Palestinian territory, OCHA reports, while persistent fuel shortages due to Israel’s border blockade of the territory “threaten the functioning of vital medical infrastructure and equipment”.
Only 2 stabilization centers for severely malnourished children are functional in #Gaza, where catastrophic hunger grips a significant portion of the population
Displaced families struggle with critically low access to water & basic services
Read more: https://t.co/CSE0VYAilt pic.twitter.com/CbugX4XGr2
— OCHA oPt (Palestine) (@ochaopt) June 14, 2024
Lack of water making near-famine conditions across Gaza worse
Israeli forces have destroyed nearly all the water wells in northern Gaza. The lack of water is making the near-famine conditions across Gaza worse as Palestinians struggle to access clean drinking water.
Footage shared online, and verified by Al Jazeera, shows a stampede and crowding among the displaced people at UNRWA schools trying to get drinking water on a daily basis.
“See how people suffer from lack of water and the spread of sewage, shelter and other challenges, including lack of food and aid,” one of the displaced people said. “I came for several days trying to get water but wasn’t successful,” said an elderly woman. “We were displaced from Beit Hanoon after we lost our homes and now in Jabalia camp, we beg for water.”
One woman said that “the Israelis destroyed not only our homes but water wells too … we cannot feed our children and now we cannot find a drop of clean water”. “This is not life. Even animals have a better life compared to us. We are butchered, if not by the Israeli bombardment, by starvation and lack of water,” she added.
In addition to wells, Israeli strikes and incursions destroyed desalination units and its troops are blocking fuel. Some Palestinians have resorted to drinking seawater.
Palestinians in Gaza ‘denied aid, protection, dignity’
James Elder, a UNICEF spokesman, says the situation in Gaza is “dire”.
“It should break our hearts that it’s been allowed to get to this point,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that as soon as he walked into the hospital in Deir el-Balah, he found a little boy named Ali who was asleep in the family home five days ago when it was struck. “He fell three floors and landed in rubble. I met his mother who said the two other siblings have been killed. This has gone on for 250 days,” Elder said.
Now Palestinians are living in “sweltering heat… in tents crammed together in a breathless space with 40-degree heat on sand,” he said. “They’re being denied aid, protection, dignity.”
Elder added that on Wednesday, UNICEF had a mission to drive a truck full of nutritional and medical supplies for 10,000 children. Their task was to deliver the aid, which was preapproved by Israeli authorities, from Deir el-Balah to Gaza City, a 40km (25 miles) round trip.
“It took 13 hours and we spent eight of those around checkpoints, arguing around paperwork – was it a truck or a van,” he said. “The reality is, this truck was denied access. Those 10,000 children did not get that aid.”
“Israel as the occupying power has the legal responsibility to facilitate that aid.”
Israeli forces shot dead fishermen, denied them medical care
Elder says he witnessed Israeli forces shoot dead two Palestinian fishermen in Gaza and denied them medical care. “I was watching fishermen – they were probably lawyers and engineers in a past life – with a single fishing net each, just trying to catch a few fish for their families. Suddenly, a tank came from the very large Israeli checkpoint,” Elder told Al Jazeera.
He said that he and doctors and paramedics from other UN agencies witnessed two fishermen flee on foot only to be shot down on the beach. They immediately called the Israeli army for permission to provide medical attention to the fishermen.
“That help was denied,” Elder said. “Half an hour later, the other fishermen took body bags and went down to the beach.” One of the fishermen, Elder added, was shot in the back, while the other was shot in the neck.
“I know that because I saw that, only because we bore witness to that. These are not unique events on the Gaza Strip.”
Palestinian fishermen fish next to the beach of the central Gaza Strip
