Gaza: Denied the right to drink clean water

21 January 2009

Oxfam's Mohammed Ali continues to report from his home in Gaza City during the aftermath of the Israeli military offensive.

Last night I drove with my wife and children to the home of my parents in law. My wife was finally reunited with her family; they have not seen one another since the conflict started.

The familiar journey down to our relatives has become unrecognisable. Rubble has replaced much of what was once standing. In the buildings that have survived, people have pinned up plastic sheets in their windows trying in vain to shelter themselves from the winter. The tragic sight of people rummaging around in the remnants of their homes, trying to salvage what they could became all too familiar during our fifty-minute journey. I wondered where these people would take the little they managed to retrieve.

The UN says some 100,000 people have been rendered homeless as a result of this conflict, their homes either damaged or destroyed.

I went to visit Oxfam's partner, the Coastal Municipality Water Utility who are responsible for Gaza's sewage and water networks. They cannot cope with what has happened. The director vented what we both already knew, that Gaza's entire water system was in disarray and that even before the Israeli military operation damaged and destroyed parts of the network; essential spare parts to repair the system were denied entry to Gaza by the Israeli authorities. The few spare parts that they did have were damaged during an Israeli attack along with the water tanks that Oxfam had stored there so that they could be ready for an emergency situation like this. He is so worried; hundreds of thousands of people only have access to water a few hours a week and in spite of his efforts, he will not be able to meet people's needs without the equipment they need.

The consequences of drinking unclean water go beyond having yellow stains on your teeth. Many people are now suffering from kidney problems as a result of being denied clean water facilities by the Israeli government.

The conversation with our partner made me think about the situation that happened almost two years ago, the sewage situation became so critical that two children and three women drowned in sewage in the village of Um Nasser. The risk is now that this could happen on a larger scale. As I write, sewage is flowing in the streets of Beit Lahiya.

My family is among the privileged; we have a water well, a water tank but if we do not have electricity the water system does not work, if we want to use our back up generator, there is little fuel available.

When I returned home I started to think about our situation a year ago when we did not have a water well. My dad would stay up all night waiting for the water and electricity to come on. In order to get the water running he would have to press a button at exactly the right time, when both water and electricity had come on. Now, if the neighbour pushed the button just before my dad, we would not get much water, just a little trickle. So there was an unspoken, subconscious race between my dad and the neighbour. At first, it was an amusing sight to see my dad with his ear to the tap, waiting for that very moment. But he soon became exhausted when he had to go on for nearly a year with just a few hours sleep a night so that his family could drink water.

Why make people live like this when there is an alternative?