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Water Shortage Crisis Deepens in Gaza as Children Struggle to Access Drinking Water – Urgent Update

Delivery time2023-12-27 19:23

Children in Gaza carrying canteens to receive water rations

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(Geneva = Yonhap News) Correspondent Ahn Hee = In the Gaza Strip, where fighting continues between Israel and the Palestinian armed faction Hamas, the water shortage crisis is deepening as facilities capable of supplying water are repeatedly damaged.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on the 27th (local time), on Christmas Day, the 25th, a water pipe passing east of Khan Younis, the central city in southern Gaza, was seriously damaged by an airstrike.

This water pipe, which has a daily water supply of 14,400㎥, is one of two water pipes that supplied drinking water from Israel to southern Gaza. The water pipe stopped working immediately after the airstrike, cutting off drinking water to the entire Khan Yunis region, OCHA said.

The water pipe that supplied drinking water to northern Gaza had been inoperable since October 8, the day after the start of the war. Northern Gaza is an area that lost most of its infrastructure in an instant as the Israeli military focused on retaliatory airstrikes following Hamas’ airstrikes.

In northern Gaza, there was the only desalination plant that was operating to at least partially alleviate the water shortage.

OCHA explained that even this facility, located in the northern Jabaliya region, was destroyed during the fighting on the 22nd. In fact, there is no way to supply water to the residents of northern Gaza other than the water included in relief supplies and well water whose water quality is difficult to guarantee.

International organizations were concerned about the worsening water shortage.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement, “Children in the Gaza Strip are no longer able to use 90% of the water they normally use. As children are more vulnerable to dehydration, diarrhea, and disease, the negative effects of water shortages are serious.” I was concerned.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), said, “The incidence of infectious diseases is already rapidly increasing in the Gaza Strip,” and pointed out, “The number of diarrheal cases in children under 5 years old is 25 times the number before the conflict.” did.

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2023/12/27 19:23 Sent

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2023-12-27 10:23:51

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