Gaza (Union)
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza announced yesterday that only 5 shipments of 24 humanitarian aid that were scheduled to arrive in the region in the first 11 days of this year had arrived in the northern Gaza Strip.
OCHA stated, in a statement, that the Israeli authorities are systematically preventing access to the northern Gaza Strip to deliver aid, adding that this greatly hinders the humanitarian operation there. Andrea Di Domenico, head of the office, added: “Operations in the north are becoming more complex.”
He went on to say, “There is a systematic refusal on the part of the Israeli side to allow us to reach the north and carry out our tasks.” Aid deliveries to northern Gaza have been limited since the start of the military operation, and the area was completely isolated from any aid in the first weeks.
He went on to say: “Not allowing us to support hospitals in particular was very systematic, and it reaches a level of inhumanity that is difficult for me to understand.” Di Domenico said he was not authorized by the UN human rights office to return to Jabalia, and was only allowed to bring a very specific amount of fuel to Shifa hospital sufficient for a specific period. In a related context, the mayor of the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, Ahmed Al-Sufi, said that the municipality has lost control over basic services, especially waste collection, treatment and drainage of sewage, due to the huge numbers of displaced people and the continuation of the war. Al-Sufi said in press statements that the Rafah Municipality lost control of basic services in the city due to the continuation of the war and the large displacement of Palestinians from northern and central Gaza towards Rafah to escape the intense bombing in those areas. He added, “The total population of Rafah currently amounts to 1.3 million people, while the original population of the governorate is 300 thousand people.” Al-Sufi added that the number of displaced people in the shelters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is estimated at about 700,000 people, while the number of displaced people in the squares and streets is about 300,000 people.
He pointed out that there is an increase in the number of displaced people daily, which places the municipality facing great challenges in providing basic services such as water, sanitation, and waste collection. He said: “The ongoing war on the Gaza Strip, especially in the southern region, has made us lose the ability to control waste collection times or collect them at pre-determined times of night, for fear of Israeli targeting.” He added that the amount of daily waste in Rafah has increased significantly due to the increase in the city's population, indicating that there is a very severe shortage in the number of mechanisms needed to provide services. He stated that the scarcity of fuel is one of the most prominent challenges facing the municipality’s work, especially since the amount allocated for waste collection operations is small and very limited, which has exacerbated the phenomenon of the spread of random dumps.
He pointed out that a number of measures had been taken to improve the health and environmental situation, the most important of which was the establishment of a temporary waste dump due to the inability of municipal crews and vehicles to reach the main dump in the “Al-Fokhari” area, east of the city of Khan Yunis. He stated that Rafah is suffering from a real crisis due to the overflow of sewage in the streets, and attributed this to the deterioration of the network and the damage it sustained as a result of the war.
He said: “The sewage network is very dilapidated and has not been developed for 17 years. The increasing population has led to severe pressure on it and blockages, thus leaking into the streets and causing a health and environmental crisis and the spread of diseases and epidemics.” He stressed that the quantities of fuel allocated to the municipality by international organizations working in Gaza to operate sanitation and drinking water facilities are not sufficient to operate the sewage treatment plant around the clock. The mayor of Rafah stated that the sewage treatment plant needs 1,500 liters of fuel per day, while what is disbursed by the international institutions responsible for distributing the quantities of fuel entering the Gaza Strip is 250 liters per day, which forced the municipality to pump wastewater into the sea without Processing and causing contamination.
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