DISPLACED PALESTINIANS SURVIVING ON JUST 3% OF MINIMUM DAILY WATER NEEDS: UN REPORT

A Palestinian child carries bottles to collect water in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, May 22, 2024. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Sat 25 May 2024:

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) has released an update on the deteriorating situation in Gaza as communicable diseases rise and displaced people are desperately short of water as Israel intensifies its attacks from north to south.

No hospitals are currently accessible in northern Gaza, the World Health Organization reports, and as of Friday only the al-Awda Hospital was “considered partially functional” in the north, though it, too, was inaccessible amid Israeli military operations.

The International Rescue Committee and the organisation Medical Aid for Palestinians reported that in central Gaza displaced people are surviving on just 3 percent of the internationally recognised minimum requirements of water.

At one shelter for displaced Palestinians, 10,000 people received just 4,000 litres of water per day, “translating to about 0.4 litres per person, for drinking, washing, cooking and cleaning”, UN OCHA reports.

Children under five are being hit hardest, with that age group accounting for 29 percent of acute respiratory infections, 33 percent of bloody diarrhoea cases, and 28 percent of watery diarrhoea.

The World Food Programme (WFP) warned this week that “if food and humanitarian supplies do not begin to enter Gaza in massive quantities, desperation and hunger will spread”.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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