SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Gaza on Brink of Acute Water Crisis: Red Cross
Blockaded strip's already deteriorating water system near catastrophe
Jul 16, 2014
Amidst the military strikes by Israeli forces, now in their second week, the International Committee of the Red Cross has warned that the population of Gaza is on the brink of an "acute water crisis."
"Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are now without water," Jacques de Maio, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Israel and the occupied territories, said in statement released Tuesday. "Within days, the entire population of the Strip may be desperately short of water," he stated.
The roughly 140 square mile territory is home to at least 1.5 million people.
The blockaded territory's already fragile water infrastructure has been damaged by the current military operation, and the unsafe situation has made it impossible for technicians to carry out needed repairs, the organization adds.
Yet, as the ICRC and other aid organizations point out, the crumbling of Gaza's water system has been going on for years.
Barbara Lubin, Founder and Executive Director of the Middle East Children's Alliance, told Common Dreams that Gazans have faced water insecurity for decades. But "it's not that there isn't water," she said, but that Israel is denying their access to it.
MECA has provided water treatment facilities at some schools--where civilians may be seeking refuge during strikes by Israeli forces--to enable children to have access potable water. But Lubin fears that those too may have been damaged.
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) stressed the long-term water crisis in a statement to press on Monday, stating that "Gaza's aquifer will have been entirely contaminated in the next three to four years making the strip essentially unlivable." The Palestinian Water Authority found that at least 90 percent of the water in Gaza in currently too contaminated to drink.
UNRWA spokesperson Sami Mshasha said Tuesday that Gaza's "water and sewage networks were barely functioning and with sustained bombardment over the past eights days were as good as destroyed and 19 million liters of untreated sewage were flowing into the ocean every day because there was no electricity to treat it."
Echoing Mshasha, ICRC's water and sanitation expert Guillaume Pierrehumbert said, "The latest attacks are the last straw" for Gaza's water system.
If ongoing attacks don't stop, ICRC's de Maio warned, "the question is not if but when an already beleaguered population will face an acute water crisis."
____________________
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Amidst the military strikes by Israeli forces, now in their second week, the International Committee of the Red Cross has warned that the population of Gaza is on the brink of an "acute water crisis."
"Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are now without water," Jacques de Maio, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Israel and the occupied territories, said in statement released Tuesday. "Within days, the entire population of the Strip may be desperately short of water," he stated.
The roughly 140 square mile territory is home to at least 1.5 million people.
The blockaded territory's already fragile water infrastructure has been damaged by the current military operation, and the unsafe situation has made it impossible for technicians to carry out needed repairs, the organization adds.
Yet, as the ICRC and other aid organizations point out, the crumbling of Gaza's water system has been going on for years.
Barbara Lubin, Founder and Executive Director of the Middle East Children's Alliance, told Common Dreams that Gazans have faced water insecurity for decades. But "it's not that there isn't water," she said, but that Israel is denying their access to it.
MECA has provided water treatment facilities at some schools--where civilians may be seeking refuge during strikes by Israeli forces--to enable children to have access potable water. But Lubin fears that those too may have been damaged.
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) stressed the long-term water crisis in a statement to press on Monday, stating that "Gaza's aquifer will have been entirely contaminated in the next three to four years making the strip essentially unlivable." The Palestinian Water Authority found that at least 90 percent of the water in Gaza in currently too contaminated to drink.
UNRWA spokesperson Sami Mshasha said Tuesday that Gaza's "water and sewage networks were barely functioning and with sustained bombardment over the past eights days were as good as destroyed and 19 million liters of untreated sewage were flowing into the ocean every day because there was no electricity to treat it."
Echoing Mshasha, ICRC's water and sanitation expert Guillaume Pierrehumbert said, "The latest attacks are the last straw" for Gaza's water system.
If ongoing attacks don't stop, ICRC's de Maio warned, "the question is not if but when an already beleaguered population will face an acute water crisis."
____________________
Amidst the military strikes by Israeli forces, now in their second week, the International Committee of the Red Cross has warned that the population of Gaza is on the brink of an "acute water crisis."
"Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are now without water," Jacques de Maio, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Israel and the occupied territories, said in statement released Tuesday. "Within days, the entire population of the Strip may be desperately short of water," he stated.
The roughly 140 square mile territory is home to at least 1.5 million people.
The blockaded territory's already fragile water infrastructure has been damaged by the current military operation, and the unsafe situation has made it impossible for technicians to carry out needed repairs, the organization adds.
Yet, as the ICRC and other aid organizations point out, the crumbling of Gaza's water system has been going on for years.
Barbara Lubin, Founder and Executive Director of the Middle East Children's Alliance, told Common Dreams that Gazans have faced water insecurity for decades. But "it's not that there isn't water," she said, but that Israel is denying their access to it.
MECA has provided water treatment facilities at some schools--where civilians may be seeking refuge during strikes by Israeli forces--to enable children to have access potable water. But Lubin fears that those too may have been damaged.
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) stressed the long-term water crisis in a statement to press on Monday, stating that "Gaza's aquifer will have been entirely contaminated in the next three to four years making the strip essentially unlivable." The Palestinian Water Authority found that at least 90 percent of the water in Gaza in currently too contaminated to drink.
UNRWA spokesperson Sami Mshasha said Tuesday that Gaza's "water and sewage networks were barely functioning and with sustained bombardment over the past eights days were as good as destroyed and 19 million liters of untreated sewage were flowing into the ocean every day because there was no electricity to treat it."
Echoing Mshasha, ICRC's water and sanitation expert Guillaume Pierrehumbert said, "The latest attacks are the last straw" for Gaza's water system.
If ongoing attacks don't stop, ICRC's de Maio warned, "the question is not if but when an already beleaguered population will face an acute water crisis."
____________________
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy