Each survival challenge affects the others:
“The argument over whether Israel has effective control over Gaza doesn’t alter the facts: Some 95 percent of the water in Gaza’s aquifer isn’t fit to drink, and purified water is distributed to households under unhygienic conditions; there is electricity for eight hours a day or less; about 100 million liters of sewage flow into the sea every day, both because of the power outages and because of delays in bringing spare parts and new pumps into Gaza; the residue of spent Israeli ammunition affects the environment and people’s health in ways that have yet to be investigated; unemployment has soared to about 40 percent, because Israeli movement restrictions have strangled production; and hundreds of thousands of young people who have never left this crowded enclave know no other reality.”
Ahead of a Disaster in Gaza
A Palestinian woman bakes bread in a tent outside her dwelling in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip December 19, 2016. IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/REUTERS