Taps have run dry across the Gaza Strip after Israel cut off water and electricity to the enclave of 2.3 million people as it intensifies its air attacks in response to a bloody Hamas attack.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
When water does trickle from pipes, the meagre flow lasts no more than 30 minutes each day and is so contaminated with sewage and seawater that it's undrinkable, residents say.
The deprivation has plunged Gaza's population deeper into misery as Israel's bombardment intensifies one week after Hamas fighters surged across Israel's separation fence, killing 1300 Israelis and abducting dozens.
Israel's retaliatory strikes have crushed hundreds of buildings in Gaza and killed more than 2200 Palestinians.
Even as terrified families flee their homes, squeezing into United Nations shelters or the chaotic halls of Gaza's biggest hospital in fear for their safety, the desperate search for water remains a constant.
UN agencies and aid groups are beseeching Israel to permit emergency deliveries of fuel and other supplies into the Gaza Strip.
"There really can't be a justification for this kind of targeting of civilians," said Miriam Marmur, a spokesperson for Gisha, an Israeli human rights group.
The UN Palestinian refugee agency called the water crisis a "matter of life or death".
If fuel and water don't arrive soon, the agency's commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said, "people will start dying of severe dehydration".
In normal times, the coastal enclave - which has struggled under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 - relies on Israel for one-third of all available drinking water, the territory's water authority says.
Its other water sources include desalination plants in the Mediterranean Sea and a subterranean aquifer, drained and damaged from years of overuse. When Israel severed electricity to Gaza, the desalination plants all shut down. So did the wastewater treatment stations.
That has left the entire territory without running water. People buy dwindling jugs from municipal sanitation stations, scour for bottles in supermarkets or drink whatever fetid liquid may dribble out of their pipes.
"It tastes bad, it smells bad," said 25-year-old Mohammed Bashir about the tap water in western Gaza City, which is mixed with untreated wastewater and seawater. "But we have no choice. My kids are crying because they're thirsty."
"The situation is disastrous, and it will become even more so after two or three days," said Husom Safiyah, a physician with MedGlobal, an organisation that sends medical teams to disaster regions. He spoke as explosions thundered outside and medics around him rushed to handle the latest influx of victims.
An airstrike near the Jabaliya refugee camp had just killed at least 27 people, mostly women and children, according to Hamas authorities, and dozens were wounded.
When asked how he would clean their wounds, he said that he would use what little tap water they had, even if it was mixed with sewage.
"We have no alternative," he said.
Australian Associated Press
