UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini : Gaza is facing death, drinking water is running out and people are on the verge of dying of thirst.
The Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, has warned of the serious repercussions of the depletion of drinking water on the lives of the 2.3 million people of the Gaza Strip, with the continuation of the Israeli aggression for the 13th day running.
On the ninth of this month, the Minister of War of the Israeli occupation government, Yoav Galant, announced the imposition of a complete siege on the Gaza Strip, saying: “There is no electricity, no food, no water, and no fuel. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”
The occupation cut off water supplies and drinking supplies to the Gaza Strip, and the fuel needed to operate the water stations, putting the Palestinian people there in the face of a catastrophe that threatens to cause them to die of thirst if they survive his missiles.
The Israeli aggression exacerbated the water crisis in the Gaza Strip , which began when the occupation imposed its siege on Gaza 17 years ago. The suffering of Palestinian people there due to the lack of water has increased as a result of Israeli nine wars on the Gaza Strip since 2008, which destroyed most of the water stations that the Israeli siege prevented the Palestinians from restoring and operating them to meet their needs.
Palestinian Minister of Health Mai Al-Kaila confirmed that the shortage of water in the Gaza Strip, the lack of hygiene and personal care supplies, in addition to overcrowding in shelter centers, increase the risk of the spread of communicable diseases in a way that heralds a real health disaster.
The World Health Organization warned that everything is dying in Gaza. Little by little, all facilities and sectors of life are in a state of complete paralysis, which threatens a humanitarian catastrophe, indicating that the lack of potable water in the Gaza Strip exposes the lives of patients in hospitals and the population in general to the risk of the spread of epidemic diseases, due to people’s depending on contaminated water.
In front of the Rafah crossing, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned on Saturday that the residents of the Gaza Strip are living under a stifling siege without food, water or fuel, and are suffering from a lack of basic materials, which requires accelerating the delivery of aid to the Strip in large quantities.
His warning came after the confirmation of the United Nations Commissioner Human rights activist Volker Türk that the siege is prohibited under international humanitarian law, and that collective punishment of the population is a war crime under international law, indicating that imposing the siege puts the lives of civilians at risk by depriving them of basic goods to survive.
While the people of the Gaza Strip are forced along with their children to use drinking contaminated water, their appeals have been ignored by the international community and the United Nations institutions, which are controlled by the West, led by the United States, which is absolutely biased towards the Israeli executioner at the expense of the Palestinian victim.
Rawaa Ghanam