Deir Al-Balah, Gaza Strip (AP)-After a hurry to stand in line for an hour under August heat, Rana Odeh returns to his tent with his tent in his tent. She wipes sweat from her eyebrow and explains how much her two young children have. With her color alone, she knows well that it is possibly contaminated.
Thirst fulfills the fear of disease.
She fills small bottles for her son and daughter and puts a sip in a tea leaf for herself. What is left he later adds to a zerican.
“We are forced to give it to our children because we have no choice,” Odeh, who left his house in Khan Younis, said about the water. “It causes diseases for us and our children.”
Such scenes have become serious routines CasternA huge displacement camp in Central Gaza where hundreds of thousands of people tolerate scorching heat heat. Sweat-soaked and covered with dust, parents and children chase water trucks that come every two or three days, fill bottles, kanastars and buckets and then take them to the house, sometimes on the trains drawn from the donkey.
Each drop is rationed for drinking, cooking, cleaning or washing. Use some re -use what they can do and whatever brings to save a couple in their zerican – or not.
When the water fails to come, Ode said, he and his son fill bottles from the sea.
Ever since Israel launched its aggressive launch in 22 months, Gaza’s water has become progressively tense. Limit on fuel imports And Electricity The operation of has been hindered Pilgrimage plant Whereas Infrastructure bottlenecks and pipeline damage Delivery to a drill. Gaza’s aquifers were polluted by sewage and bombing buildings. Wales is mostly inaccessible or destroyed, called help groups and local utility.
Meanwhile, the water crisis has helped spread the disease on the top of Gaza’s growing starvation on a large scale. UNRWA – United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees – said on Thursday that its health centers now look at an average of 10,300 patients a week with infectious diseases, mostly diarrhea with contaminated water.
Efforts to reduce water scarcity are at speed, but for many possibilities still overshraded what may happen before the new supply comes.
And thirst is growing only as a summer wave, with, with Humidity and temperature rising in Gaza On Friday, 35 ° C (95 ° F).
Summer and dull water
Mahmud al-Dibes, a father, was displaced from Gaza city to Mousal, dumping water on his head with a flashy plastic bag-one of the ships carrying water in the lines.
“It is hot outside the tent and it is hot inside the tent, so we are forced to drink this water wherever we go,” he said.
Al-Dibs were among many people who told Associated Press that they deliberately drink non-drinking water.
Some people still hold roof tanks, which cannot give them enough water to clean, so what flows from their tap is yellow and insecure, said Bushra Khalidi, an officer with an officer Oxfam, a support group working in Gaza.
Prior to the war, more than 2 million inhabitants of the coastal enclave received their water from a patchwork of sources. Some were pipes by Israel’s national water utility Mekorot. Some came from the plants of spinning. Some were drawn from high-line wells, and some were imported into bottles.
Each source is threatened.
Palestinians have more confidence in groundwater, which today makes more than half of the supply of Gaza. According to Palestinian water officials and support groups, well water is historically salty, but is still serving for cleaning, bathing or farming.
Now people have to drink it.
Mark Zitoun, Director General of Geneva Water Hub, a policy institute, said that the effects of drinking impure water are not always visible.
“Undevated sewage mixes with drinking water, and if you drink it or wash your food with it, you can drink germs and get dysentery,” Jitoun said. “If you are forced to drink salty, saltwater, it just does your kidney, and then you are on Dialysis For decades. ,
A fraction of the average delivery-15-liter (3.3-gallon) less than three liters (12.5 cups) per day, minimum humanitarian groups say that it is essential for drinking, cooking and basic hygiene. In February, there were acute water diarrhea for less than 20% of the diseases reported in Gaza. According to UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, by July, it had increased by 44%, the risk of severe dehydration increased.
System of system
At the beginning of the war, the residents stated that delivery was curbed from Israel’s water company Mecorot – one claim that Israel has refused. Aerial attacks destroyed one of the three unanimous plants of Gaza along with transmission pipelines.
According to UNICEF, the bombing and moving soldiers damaged or cut the wells – on the fact that today only 137 of the 392 wells of Gaza are accessible. Some wells have deteriorated the quality of water, fouled by sewage, the debris of broken buildings and the remains of the spent munis.
Fuel deficiency has put the system under stress, slowing the pumps on the trucks carrying wells and water. Support groups and officials say the remaining twoononialization plants have operated the capacity or capacity or below the ground or below the ground.
In recent weeks, Israel has taken some steps to reverse the damage. This rescues water through two of the three pipelines of Mecorot in Gaza and re -connects one of the Perception Plants for Israel’s power grid, Deputy Foreign Minister Sharan Haskel told the Associated Press.
Nevertheless, the plants were kept much less than the war, Manthar Shoblak, the head of Gaza’s coastal municipalities, told AP. This has forced him to make an impossible option.
Utility preference hospitals and people to receive water. But this means that sometimes stop Water required for sewage treatment, Which can trigger the backup of the neighborhood and increase health risks.
Water has not put a global resentment on the food that enters Gaza. But Shoblak warned of a straight line between crisis and possible loss of life.
“It is clear that you can survive for a few days without food, but not without water,” he said.
Future of supply
The use of water after Israel’s steps is stable. Assistance activists have expected that the situation will not deteriorate and may improve.
Southern Gaza may get more relief from the United Arab Emirates-Finance Planning Plant across the border in Egypt. Gaza, in -charge of humanitarian aid, Israeli military body Kogat said that it has allowed the equipment to build a pipeline from the plant in the enclave and may begin delivery in a few weeks.
The plant will not depend on Israel for power, but since Israel holds the crossing, it will control the entry of water into the Gaza for the future.
But support groups have warned that access to water and other assistance can be re -disrupted by Israeli’s plans to re -launch a new aggressive launch in some final areas outside their military control. The areas include Gaza City and Mousals, where most of Gaza’s population is now located.
In the tent camps of Moussa, people are ready for sporadic arrival of water trucks.
Hosni Shaheen, whose family was also displaced from Khan Younis, already sees water which he drinks as the last remedy.
“It causes stomach cramps for adults and children, without any exception,” he said. “You don’t feel safe when your children drink it.”
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Metz reported from Jerusalem. Alon Berstein contributed reporting from Karem Shalom, Israel. ,
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Wafa Shurfa and Sam Metz, Associated Press