GAZA, (PIC)
The Palestinian Water Authority and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates have issued an urgent international appeal to UN special rapporteurs on human rights and women’s rights, along with several international bodies, warning of an unprecedented water and sanitation crisis in the occupied territories, especially in the Gaza Strip.
Their appeal, which was issued on Tuesday, underlines that the situation in the Palestinian territories has gone beyond a mere service crisis, becoming a systematic pattern of “water deprivation” that amounts to what they described as “water starvation,” resulting from Israeli policies and the systematic targeting of water infrastructure.
The appeal described the water deprivation policies pursued by Israel in the occupied territories as a “grave violation of international humanitarian law and human rights.”
“The repeated bombing of water and sanitation systems and the destruction of vital facilities in Gaza have created a dire humanitarian reality, threatening civilian lives and undermining their right to safe water,” the appeal said.
According to figures cited in the appeal, around 2.7 million women and girls in Palestine suffer from water insecurity.
“More than one million women and girls in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, are unable to meet their minimum daily water needs, while women in the Gaza Strip face even harsher conditions, with access levels falling below internationally recognized water survival standards,” the water authority and the ministry explained.
In a related context, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the needs of Gaza’s population continue to far exceed what relief organizations are able to provide, amid tight restrictions and ongoing obstacles that hinder humanitarian work.
In a statement released Tuesday, OCHA explained that UNICEF and its partners managed to restore access to clean water in southern Gaza after an Israeli airstrike on March 25 severely reduced the output of the seawater desalination plant there to less than 20 percent of its operating capacity.
According to OCHA, nearly half a million people in Deir al‑Balah and the al‑Mawasi area of Khan Yunis have been left without adequate access to drinking water due to a sharp decline in the desalination of seawater, despite ongoing UN efforts to supply water through truck deliveries.
OCHA stressed the urgent need to facilitate the work of humanitarian organizations and allow larger quantities of essential goods into the Gaza Strip through available crossings, as the humanitarian crisis continues to worsen.
