Israel continues using water as a weapon in its brutal assault on Palestinians.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a person requires 100 litres of water a day to ensure that basic needs are met.
In the West Bank, Israelis and illegal settlers use between 240 and 300 litres of water per person per day. Palestinians are allowed about 73 litres per person—and in some communities receive as little as 20 litres. Some villages receive water once every 15 days.
Israel denies Palestinians the right to dig wells on their own land, and forbids the collection of rainwater.
In the Gaza Strip, 98% of the 2 million residents (992,000 of them children) are without clean drinking water to Israel’s continuing assaults and refusal to fix the water and sewage infrastructure it has distroyed.
97% of the water in the Gaza Strip is unfit for human consumption, and at least 100,000 people are completely disconnected from the water network. The purchase of potable tanked or bottled water is beyond most people’s means.
This situation is a leading cause of child mortality. Gaza's children are facing a deadly health epidemic of unprecedented proportions.
Babies are suffering from dehydration, vomiting, life-threatening diarrhea, and fever, sharp rises in gastroenteritis, kidney disease, anemia, pediatric cancer, marasmus (a disease of severe malnutrition), and "blue baby syndrome," increased infant mortality, and an "alarming magnitude" of stunting, which can affect brain development. Diarrheal disease has risen to epidemic levels, as well as spikes in salmonella and even typhoid fever caused by fecal contamination.
The devastating water crisis has forced hospitals in the Gaza Strip to reduce the cleaning and sterilizing of medical facilities.
