Mahmoud Abdel Hakim waits to collect water from a tanker in Gaza City. He is exhausted but is the main support for his wife, his parents and his two children.
The 32-year-old stands in line with dozens of others, all desperate to fill water bottles, large and small.
They don’t have many options: the water is not safe, but it is the only thing available.
Mahmoud says it’s so salty it almost tastes like sea water.
“I am drinking contaminated water because I have no other option. Now I am buying a barrel of water for 50 Israeli shekels (US$12.5).
“Before that, and in the worst case, we paid a maximum of 20 shekels (US$5),” he says.
The Gaza Strip has been in crisis since Israel cut off water and electricity in response to the Hamas attack on October 7 that killed more than 1,400 people.
Dirty water is now sold at “skyrocketing prices.”
“If I’m lucky, I will be able to fill a barrel for the next three days, which I will then share with my family, my parents and 35 other displaced Palestinians.”
Mahmoud’s family decided to remain in Gaza City, despite an Israeli order to leave amid intense airstrikes and fears of a ground invasion.
A common refrain echoes through the streets when people are asked why they haven’t moved south: “Where will we go and what will we eat?”
Share the little water there is
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 3,000 people have been killed and 12,500 injured in the Gaza Strip since the start of Israeli airstrikes.
“Now the Israeli army has warned that it is also going to bomb this neighborhood,” says Mahmoud, his voice thick with emotion.
The 500 liters of water that Mahmoud has managed to buy will be shared with 38 people. They are going to be heavily rationed and stored in pots and pans.
He shared a video with the BBC showing the kitchen taps of his family home: there is not a drop of water available. Her family only drinks at certain times of the day and takes turns washing. There is hardly any water left to cook.
According to residents of the Gaza Strip, Palestinians have resorted to drawing water from wells which is then pumped into large trucks. The trucks travel to various neighborhoods and sell the water.
Water shortages have made the situation especially difficult for families with children.
“The children are starving, so I am forced to make popcorn for them, because it is the only thing we have left,” says Nahed Abu Harbied, who lives with her sister and seven nieces and nephews in Tal-al-Hawa, another neighborhood in the west of Gaza City.
Their house has been shrouded in darkness since Israel cut off the electricity.
Uncertainty
Nahed shows one last plastic container of water and says this is all they have left. They don’t know where the next water supply will come from.
The UN is sounding the alarm about the spread of diseases.
“People will start dying without water,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said in a statement.
People face illness and disease due to dirty drinking water as well as collapsing infrastructure.
Gaza’s Health Ministry has said the level of contaminated water in Gaza is “very high” and has warned of a “serious epidemic.”
In a week without clean water, there have been many cases of diarrhea in children, says Dr. Ramy Al-Abadla, director of the primary health care department at the Gaza Ministry of Health.
He adds that the lack of personal hygiene has caused skin diseases among the displaced, including chickenpox.
Israel recently said it would resume water supplies to the southern part of the Gaza Strip and allow supplies in from Egypt.
A water supply point was opened east of Khan Yunis, opposite the Bnei-Sahilah refugee camp. But some locals say they haven’t received anything.
Mouna Zaki, a Palestinian mother who fled with her family to the southern city of Rafah, says they have not received water for 10 days.
“We buy contaminated water for 200 shekels (US$50) a barrel,” he says.
But even if the water supply was restored, residents say it would not be enough without power to pump it to residential buildings.
UNRWA said that in the southern Gaza Strip, a water pipeline was “limitedly supplying water to just half the population of Khan Younis” for three hours.
The UN says this only benefited 14% of the population (308,000 people) of the Gaza Strip.
However, an Israeli official, who did not want to be named, told the BBC that water supplies had resumed in the south.
But he said Israel only provides 8% to 10% of the Gaza Strip’s water supply.
“Most of the water in the Gaza Strip comes from local pumping,” the Israeli official said.
“There are generators, but Hamas does not supply fuel for the generators to pump the water, but rather uses it in its terrorist activities.”
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/c1r4z1dennxo, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-10-18 18:50:06
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