Drinking Water Projects Halt...Gaza Strip Threatened by Thirst, Displaced Resort to Sea Again

Exclusive to "Al-Quds" - Salah Skeik - A new crisis is sweeping the Gaza Strip, adding to the series of crises that have hit the Strip since October 2023, as the coastal area located on the Mediterranean Sea will turn into a desert without drinking water by the summer of 2026.

Recently, some drinking water distribution projects to displaced persons' camps in a number of areas of the Strip have stopped. The project consists of 30 water trucks, and each truck carries 15 cubic meters, and this quantity covers about 300 camps daily.

With the onset of summer, the need for drinking water for the displaced doubles compared to winter, when there was also a drinking water crisis. Currently, reliance is placed on water trucks sponsored by some initiatives, which meet only 10% of the daily needs of the displaced, meaning we are facing a new catastrophe added to the catastrophes of the war of annihilation.

Seawater is not a solution

Umm Rami stands in front of her jerry cans, waiting for the water truck that used to come daily. Due to the water shortage, it now visits their camp twice a week, meaning she will have to reduce the amount of water consumed for cooking, bathing, and washing clothes.

Umm Rami said in an interview with "Al-Quds" newspaper that she would resort to what she used to do a year ago, which is filling her jerry cans with seawater, which is salty and unsuitable for drinking, bathing, or washing; she added, "But despite that, I am forced to use seawater for bathing, washing clothes and dishes."

She explained that her three children walk a long distance to reach the beach, and this process is repeated five or six times daily, calling on the countries of the world to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophes in the Gaza Strip, the first and most important of which is the water crisis.

Water and the Third Famine

For his part, Hussam Hamdan, a displaced farmer in the Al-Mawasi area, said that the water crisis sweeping the Gaza Strip will affect the irrigation of vegetables and fruits, meaning that the water crisis will create a food crisis, as Gazans rely on vegetables for their food due to the high prices of other foods and the scarcity of many of them.

Hamdan pointed out in an interview with "Al-Quds" that vegetables constantly need irrigation, and due to the intense heat in the Gaza Strip this year and the lack of sufficient water, many crops will perish, and the Strip's environment will turn into a "deserted" environment, without any international intervention to protect the population or the environment, warning of a third famine due to this reality.

We do not want to be controlled by a despicable settler

As for Mahmoud Al-Ghandour, he stressed that due to the water crisis, neighboring countries are required either to pressure Israel to solve the water problem, specifically "Mekorot" water, or to extend water pipes to the Strip, adding: "We do not want oil or gas... We want to drink water, Arabs, without being controlled by a despicable settler who closes the water tap whenever he wants."

Al-Ghandour added to "Al-Quds" newspaper that Israel wants to maintain this situation in the Gaza Strip and create crises after the genocide and famine, so that Gazans begin to think about migrating to foreign countries, and this is what the settler Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said days ago.

He concluded his speech by calling on international organizations working in the Gaza Strip to continue implementing drinking water projects, foremost among them the United Nations Development Programme "UNDP," which has been concerned with providing safe drinking water to the population since the beginning of the war of annihilation.

According to a report published by the United Nations, about 75% of the displaced in the Gaza Strip rely on water transported by trucks, amid a severe deterioration of infrastructure and the continuation of the humanitarian crisis resulting from the ongoing war since October 2023.

The United Nations indicated that more than two and a half years after the outbreak of the war of annihilation, the tents spread throughout the Strip are no longer just temporary shelters for the displaced, but have turned into a harsh daily reality that encapsulates the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have lost their homes, their safety, and all the details of their previous lives.