NEW YORK, (PIC)
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that severe water shortages in the Gaza Strip have reached critical levels, with only one in 10 people currently able to access safe drinking water, a total of 90 percent of the population.
The UNICEF official in Gaza, Rosalia Poulin, said on the organization’s website that 600,000 people regained access to drinking water in November 2024, only to be cut off again.
UN agencies estimate that 1.8 million people, more than half of whom are children, are in urgent need of water, sanitation, and health assistance, stressing that the situation deteriorated further after the Israeli decision to cut off electricity to the Strip, disrupting vital desalination operations.
Earlier, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, condemned the Israeli authorities’ cutting off the electricity supply to the Gaza Strip.
She said in a statement posted on her account on X, “Genocide alert! “Israel’s cutting of electricity to Gaza means no functioning desalination plants and therefore no clean water”.
On March 2, Hebrew media said Israel intends to start implementing an escalation plan against Gaza within a week, including cutting electricity and water, carrying out assassinations, re-deporting Palestinians from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip and resuming the war.
Israel stopped the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip last Sunday, amid local and human rights warnings that the Palestinians will return to famine.
In early March, the first phase of the 42-day ceasefire agreement in Gaza officially ended without Israel agreeing to enter the second phase and end the war.
Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu wants to extend the first phase of the exchange deal to release as many Israeli captives in Gaza as possible, without offering any compensation or completing the military and humanitarian obligations stipulated in the ceasefire agreement during the past period, to satisfy the extremists in his government.
Hamas rejects this, demanding that Israel abide by the agreement and calling on the mediators to immediately begin negotiations for the second phase, which includes an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a complete cessation of the war.
