The blockade of all types of supplies to Gaza increases the humanitarian crisis in the area. Israel responded to Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7 by cutting off water, electricity and fuel to the Strip, a problem for residents. His ultimatum to evacuate the capital and concentrate refugees in the south has worsened the crisis.
Although yesterday the Netanyahu government promised to bring water to the camp area, the truth is that water continues to be a scarce essential commodity. The country’s desalination and purification plants are not working, so many citizens do not have easy access to it and must ration it very strictly.
In the south, Assem explains it to the AFP agency very clearly: “Either you bathe with it or you drink it.” Dozens of people line up at the bathrooms to get a bottle and they haven’t been able to clean themselves for days. “It’s a problem,” stresses Assem, who has several “guests” who fled the north in his house in Jan Yunes.
Every day they try to get bottles at any cost and measure every drop that comes out of them. Others have started to extract it from agricultural wells, with the health risk that this entails. Mazen Abu Hamisa is one of them, says the Palestinian newspaper ‘Felesteen’: “I asked for a desalination plant, but it was impossible.” His neighbor Jamal Abu Saada mixes fresh and salt water to stretch reserves.
The power outage in Gaza in the middle of last week caused the closure of four of the country’s five treatment plants and 53 of the 65 wastewater pumping stations are not working, local press reports. Ahmed Hamid has been taking refuge for days in Rafah, the last city in Gaza before reaching Egypt. «I feel humiliated and ashamed. We don’t have many clothes, most of them are dirty and there is no water to wash them. I feel like I’m losing my humanity,” he admits.
«I will not give up a grain of our land»
Sabah Mousbeh, 50, also feels this way: “Not having water is very dangerous,” she told AFP journalists. Food is also a scarce commodity: “The only thing we find are preserves, tuna and cheese.” They are the urban dramas of a conflict with a long history that has clung to the skin of both sides.
Samira Hassab has lost her house in Rafah to the bombings, she sleeps on the street, but she does not think about surrender. «My daughter has cancer, I can’t take her to the hospital. I have diabetes. But I won’t leave no matter what. We will ask the neighbors for bread but we will not give up even a grain of our land,” she emphasizes to the press.
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