More than 700 Palestinians, mainly children, have been killed by the Israeli army while trying to collect water since the war began 21 months ago, according to Gazan authorities.
The Israeli army destroyed 720 wells and obstructed 12 million litres of fuel needed monthly to operate a minimum number of wells and sewage and waste collection plants, said the media office of the Gaza government, which is run by Hamas.
On Monday, the director of the United Nations children’s agency, Unicef, Catherine Russell, called for the Israeli army to “urgently review the rules of engagement and ensure compliance with international humanitarian law” after seven children and four adults were killed on Sunday while waiting for water at a distribution hub.
The Israeli military said there had been a “technical error” with a strike targeting an Islamic Jihad “terrorist” that caused the munition to fall dozens of metres from the target. The incident is under review, it said.
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Ahmed – a Gazan who lives in Cyprus but speaks to his family daily – said: “There is no water in the pipes, no electricity, no fuel. A litre of diesel costs 100 Israeli shekels (€25.60).”
People depend on two types of tanker trucks: one delivers potable water and the other provides water for washing and cleaning. Some wells have solar panels or generators to purify water. But even this can remain saline, causing kidney damage, or polluted, resulting in stomach ailments.
Fortunately, he said his father and brother live in Gaza City in a “repaired flat in a damaged building where there is a well for bathroom water”.
Although he said “nowhere is safe in Gaza”, they, along with most other Gazans, have to fetch “drinking water in 20-litre plastic jerry cans and pay for it”.
He said these tanker trucks and Palestinians, largely children, gathering near them to get water, have been targeted by Israeli strikes. Some critics have called this Israel’s “water war”.
Shortly after Israel imposed its blockade on March 2nd, power supplies were cut to the main desalination plants, the chief source of drinking water for Gazans, and dozens of privately owned, unregulated, small-capacity brackish water desalination plants.
Since then, the United Nations reported that Israeli attacks have destroyed 70 per cent of Gaza’s desalination plants, pipelines and wells in a campaign dubbed the “water war”.
Gaza’s coastal aquifer, the strip’s sole natural source of water, has been polluted for decades by seawater, sewage and fertilisers.
