By — Tim McPhillips Tim McPhillips By — Yasmeen Sami Alamiri Yasmeen Sami Alamiri Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/in-gazas-widening-humanitarian-crisis-water-access-becomes-dire Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter In Gaza’s widening humanitarian crisis, water access becomes dire World Nov 7, 2023 5:22 PM EDT Getting clean water in Gaza has long been complicated, but since the Israel-Hamas war began last month, access has gone from tenuous to dire. Along with shortages of fuel and medical supplies as the humanitarian crisis worsens, clean water for drinking, hygiene and cooking is increasingly rare. The average Gazan is relying on around 3 liters of water per day for consumption, cooking and personal hygiene needs such as toilets, or bathing, said Jonathan Crickx, Chief of Communication and Advocacy for UNICEF in the State of Palestine. The accepted international emergency threshold of water per person is 15 liters per day, Crickx said – five times more than what people in Gaza have now. “With all the sources of water which are currently available, the production is no more than 5% of the usual production,” Crickx said. Damage from the war has taken its toll on water delivery systems. An estimated 1.4 million people have been displaced in Gaza. Homes, schools, and hospitals have all been destroyed in the war. More than half of the water supply infrastructure is in need of repair or full rehabilitation, Crickx said. How does Gaza get water? Surrounded by salt water to the west, and walled off by Israel to its east, Gaza’s water situation has always been tenuous. Ninety-six percent of the water in Gaza’s sole underground aquifer is not fit for human consumption according to the United Nations. UNICEF has reported delays and challenges bringing in necessary infrastructure to Gaza due to the Israeli blockade. Gaza gets its water from three main sources. Three seawater desalination plants that can produce around 7 percent of Gaza’s clean water needs. Three pipelines from Israel that provide around 13 percent of Gaza’s water needs. A system of about 300 wells and boreholes from an aquifer below Gaza, treated by small desalination units. All of these sources are shut down or severely limited because of the war. Two of the three desalination plants have been shut down, Crickx said, due to damaged infrastructure and a lack of fuel to run generators, which has also affected water processing from wells and boreholes. Water from Israel is intermittent, and at times has been turned off. What are the health risks of using unsafe water? With access to clean water exceedingly rare, some residents of Gaza have turned to brackish water, which is high in salinity, or water intended for agricultural uses, which may contain pesticides or chemicals. In an interview from Jerusalem, Crickx described a colleague’s struggle to find water in Palestine. “She had only access to salty water and … she was giving that to her daughter, who was complaining she had stomach cramps, diarrhea and symptoms of dehydration because of that. And she couldn’t find any other water,” he said. Lack of clean water can produce serious health consequences, especially for children. High salinity in drinking water has been linked to cardiovascular and other diseases, as well as diarrhea and stomach pain. Consumption of untreated water can lead to chemical exposure or increased disease transmission, including diarrhea, which kills an estimated 1 million people a year due to unsafe drinking water, sanitization and hand hygiene, according to the World Health Organization. Diarrheal disease is the second leading cause of death for children under 5 years old, with more than 2,000 children dying of diarrheal diseases each day globally. What aid is able to make it into Gaza is still just “a drop in the ocean,” compared to the mounting needs there, Crickx said. Bottled water delivered by UNICEF on the first day of aid could only cover 20 to 30,000 people for a few days, he added. Gaza is home to more than 2 million people. Crickx added that UNICEF has no evidence of earlier fears that Hamas might steal the limited civilian aid making it into Gaza. “We have a very robust monitoring system. That is also why we have people on the ground in order to avoid that,” he said. How to get more clean water to Gaza A priority is focusing on distribution of fuel, so that “the desalination plant can produce as much water as possible, because this is really how we can produce water at scale,” Crickx said. Another is focusing on bringing in trucks of water, and distributing bottled water, Crickx said. The only way to ensure treatment and delivery of water according to Crickx is a humanitarian ceasefire and the creation of a “sustained, safe and predictable humanitarian corridor” to allow supplies to enter Gaza to begin to bring back water capacity at scale. “The situation that we are facing is that we can bring some bottles of water, and it’s very important because the needs are so high,” Crickx said. “But when we see the needs on the ground, we realize how this is not sufficient.” Repairs to infrastructure take more time, and are more difficult. Adding to the challenge, the United Nations Reliefs and Works Agency has reported that 89 of its relief workers have been killed in Gaza as of Nov. 6. “We have colleagues who are telling us how the struggle they face on a daily basis to just gather a little bit of food or water,” Crickx said. “The situation is extremely difficult.” By — Tim McPhillips Tim McPhillips @timmcphillips3 By — Yasmeen Sami Alamiri Yasmeen Sami Alamiri Yasmeen Sami Alamiri is the Senior Editor for video and special projects at the PBS NewsHour.
Getting clean water in Gaza has long been complicated, but since the Israel-Hamas war began last month, access has gone from tenuous to dire. Along with shortages of fuel and medical supplies as the humanitarian crisis worsens, clean water for drinking, hygiene and cooking is increasingly rare. The average Gazan is relying on around 3 liters of water per day for consumption, cooking and personal hygiene needs such as toilets, or bathing, said Jonathan Crickx, Chief of Communication and Advocacy for UNICEF in the State of Palestine. The accepted international emergency threshold of water per person is 15 liters per day, Crickx said – five times more than what people in Gaza have now. “With all the sources of water which are currently available, the production is no more than 5% of the usual production,” Crickx said. Damage from the war has taken its toll on water delivery systems. An estimated 1.4 million people have been displaced in Gaza. Homes, schools, and hospitals have all been destroyed in the war. More than half of the water supply infrastructure is in need of repair or full rehabilitation, Crickx said. How does Gaza get water? Surrounded by salt water to the west, and walled off by Israel to its east, Gaza’s water situation has always been tenuous. Ninety-six percent of the water in Gaza’s sole underground aquifer is not fit for human consumption according to the United Nations. UNICEF has reported delays and challenges bringing in necessary infrastructure to Gaza due to the Israeli blockade. Gaza gets its water from three main sources. Three seawater desalination plants that can produce around 7 percent of Gaza’s clean water needs. Three pipelines from Israel that provide around 13 percent of Gaza’s water needs. A system of about 300 wells and boreholes from an aquifer below Gaza, treated by small desalination units. All of these sources are shut down or severely limited because of the war. Two of the three desalination plants have been shut down, Crickx said, due to damaged infrastructure and a lack of fuel to run generators, which has also affected water processing from wells and boreholes. Water from Israel is intermittent, and at times has been turned off. What are the health risks of using unsafe water? With access to clean water exceedingly rare, some residents of Gaza have turned to brackish water, which is high in salinity, or water intended for agricultural uses, which may contain pesticides or chemicals. In an interview from Jerusalem, Crickx described a colleague’s struggle to find water in Palestine. “She had only access to salty water and … she was giving that to her daughter, who was complaining she had stomach cramps, diarrhea and symptoms of dehydration because of that. And she couldn’t find any other water,” he said. Lack of clean water can produce serious health consequences, especially for children. High salinity in drinking water has been linked to cardiovascular and other diseases, as well as diarrhea and stomach pain. Consumption of untreated water can lead to chemical exposure or increased disease transmission, including diarrhea, which kills an estimated 1 million people a year due to unsafe drinking water, sanitization and hand hygiene, according to the World Health Organization. Diarrheal disease is the second leading cause of death for children under 5 years old, with more than 2,000 children dying of diarrheal diseases each day globally. What aid is able to make it into Gaza is still just “a drop in the ocean,” compared to the mounting needs there, Crickx said. Bottled water delivered by UNICEF on the first day of aid could only cover 20 to 30,000 people for a few days, he added. Gaza is home to more than 2 million people. Crickx added that UNICEF has no evidence of earlier fears that Hamas might steal the limited civilian aid making it into Gaza. “We have a very robust monitoring system. That is also why we have people on the ground in order to avoid that,” he said. How to get more clean water to Gaza A priority is focusing on distribution of fuel, so that “the desalination plant can produce as much water as possible, because this is really how we can produce water at scale,” Crickx said. Another is focusing on bringing in trucks of water, and distributing bottled water, Crickx said. The only way to ensure treatment and delivery of water according to Crickx is a humanitarian ceasefire and the creation of a “sustained, safe and predictable humanitarian corridor” to allow supplies to enter Gaza to begin to bring back water capacity at scale. “The situation that we are facing is that we can bring some bottles of water, and it’s very important because the needs are so high,” Crickx said. “But when we see the needs on the ground, we realize how this is not sufficient.” Repairs to infrastructure take more time, and are more difficult. Adding to the challenge, the United Nations Reliefs and Works Agency has reported that 89 of its relief workers have been killed in Gaza as of Nov. 6. “We have colleagues who are telling us how the struggle they face on a daily basis to just gather a little bit of food or water,” Crickx said. “The situation is extremely difficult.”