Hamas said on Monday that Israel had not resumed water supplies for the Gaza Strip despite pledging to do so, while an Israeli official responded that some water was being provided to an area in the south of the enclave.
Israel stopped piping water to Gazans as part of a siege imposed to stop food and fuel from reaching the enclave of 2.3 million people, many poor and dependent on aid in response to a surprise Hamas offensive on October 7 that left 1,300 Israelis dead, according to officials.
After it suffered the deadliest attack in its history, Israel unleashed a relentless bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza health ministry has said the death toll from Israeli strikes on the territory has risen to around 2,750 while some 9,700 people have also been injured. Some 600,000 Gazans have been displaced while supplies are running out.
Key developments:
Tonnes of aid from NGOs and several countries waiting on trucks in Egypt
UNRWA says teams having to ration water; official says Gaza is being ‘strangled’
PM Kakar says Israel’s ‘deliberate, disproportionate’ targeting of Gaza civilians in violation of international law
US president says any move by Israel to occupy Gaza would be a ‘big mistake’
Hamas interior ministry spokesman Eyad Al-Bozom said on Monday there had been no resumption of water supplies: “The residents drink unhealthy water, posing a serious health crisis threatens the lives of the citizens.”
An aide to Israeli Energy and Infrastructure Minister Israel Katz said water was being supplied in the community of Bnei Sahila, near southern Khan Younis. The aide declined to elaborate on the amount of water being supplied.
Katz said on Sunday that resupplying water in southern Gaza would encourage Palestinian civilians to congregate there as Israel pummels Hamas targets in Gaza City to the north. Israel has told residents of the northern half of Gaza, including Gaza City, to leave for the south.
‘Gaza is being strangled’
“Gaza is being strangled and it seems that the world right now has lost its humanity,” said United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, in an urgent appeal for critical aid to be allowed in.
“We all know water is life — Gaza is running out of water, and Gaza is running out of life,” he said.
Lazzarini feared that soon there would be no food or medicine in the Palestinian enclave. “There is not one drop of water, not one grain of wheat, not a litre of fuel that has been allowed into the Gaza Strip for the last eight days.
“The number of people seeking shelter in our schools and other UNRWA facilities in the south is absolutely overwhelming, and we do not have any more the capacity to deal with them,” he added.
“An unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding under our eyes,” the UN official stated, highlighting that UNRWA has lost 14 of its members in the war so far and Gaza had even run out of body bags.
“All parties must facilitate a humanitarian corridor so we can reach all those in need of support,” Lazzarini added.
Separately, in a post on X today, UNRWA said its teams in Gaza were having to ration water as the Palestinian enclave “is running dry”.
“A quarter of a million people in Gaza moved to shelters over past 24 hours — the majority are at UNRWA schools where clean water has actually run out,” it said.
