For Palestinians in Gaza, the most urgent daily task is the search for water. “Obtaining water has become like prospecting for gold,” explains H., a writer with We Are Not Numbers, “and whoever finds drinkable water is considered wealthy."
Last Sunday, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations insisted “there was not a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in Gaza despite the reported shortages of fuel, water and medical supplies in the territory[.]”
I’m a Jewish American who mentors young adult Gazan writers through a program called We Are Not Numbers (WANN). Or, at least, I did before October 7. Since Israel started bombing the territory and cut off most communications, I can only regularly reach one, A. (I’m using initials because Gazans are concerned about being targeted for retaliation if they criticize Israel).
We don’t discuss A.’s writing anymore. Instead, he sends me messages about how many hours he stands in line for bread each day without getting any (the record, so far, is 8). He sleeps with 50 other people on the floor of a hall with no working bathrooms, no electricity, and minimal food—as of a few days ago, his family was eating chocolate and chips as meals because it was all they could find on the emptying store shelves. But none of this is as pressing as the daily search for water.
A.’s family evacuated from their home in Gaza City to the southern city of Khan Yunis, per the IDF’s instructions, along with hundreds of thousands of other refugees. There’s no running water in most of the city, because Israel shut off the pipes leading into Gaza and won’t allow any fuel in to power its desalination plants.
At first, A. walked the streets looking to buy small bottles of water from any store that had them. Sometimes he’d find a few to split among his immediate family members. Eventually, though, the stores had none left, and his family started drinking unclean water from whatever source they could find. They haven’t seen any of the aid coming in on the few trucks allowed into Gaza, a fraction of what’s needed to keep the population of over 2 million people, half of whom are children, alive. In fact, A. hasn’t met anyone receiving the aid.
M., another WANN writer, messaged her mentor that “people are drinking from municipality water (which is for washing/cleaning and not for drinking) due to the severe lack of water. Some people use a filter to purify either that water or water from the sea! Some people have wells beneath their homes but they don’t have electricity to pump it. Some Mosques donated water for people. They have to be in a loooong queue to fill a bottle of water. Some people are lucky and the rest are not.”
“Obtaining water has become like prospecting for gold,” explains H., another writer, “and whoever finds drinkable water is considered wealthy. We have three yellow bottles that we carry long distances—about 7 km each way—to find water from a mosque, hospital, or water charity that runs on solar energy, which are being bombed these days. We go and wait for our turn, which takes almost two hours, to fill the containers under terrifying bombardment, and sometimes we do not find water at all due to the large number of people. I haven’t washed for a long time.” H. walks to fill his bottles even though his family has a vehicle, because they ran out of fuel.
Several days ago, I was awakened in the middle of the night by A. messaging me—here in the United States— to ask me to help him find water, as his family’s access to even the unclean municipal water had run out. He has a history of kidney stones and was terrified of his increasing dehydration.
I went into overdrive, contacting everyone I know with family in Gaza, asking if they knew of a water source in Khan Yunis. Instead, I got requests back asking for any information I might have on places to find water in Rafah, Deir Al-Balah, and Maghazi—because everyone’s family is desperate for it.
I reached out to the Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), an organization based in California that provides aid on the ground in Palestine. They had a small purification site in Khan Younis, but the IDF cut communications and by the time I was able to reach A. two days later, MECA’s purification system already had stopped working. A. told me that he’d found a small amount of foul-tasting municipal water. All of the small children in the family were experiencing fevers and other symptoms that a local pharmacist identified as a waterborne illness.
In Rafah and Maghazi, MECA’s units are in UNWRA schools sheltering thousands of people, I learned, and the water is being rationed to keep those people alive. There is nothing extra. In Deir Al-Balah, MECA’s unit is out of chemicals and, due to the siege, there’s no way to replenish them.
The situation changes daily. On Tuesday, A. reported that they’d found water they were told had been purified, but it was so chlorinated that it was hard to swallow and was hurting their stomachs. They drank it anyway, because they had to. Today I learned from MECA that water was turned back on in some parts of Khan Yunis, but in very limited quantities. I haven’t been able to reach A. to learn if he has access, or if he and his family are still surviving.
Dehydration isn’t the only problem. With the washing water being used for drinking, some people are using seawater to wash dishes or clothing. But because the wastewater treatment plants have no fuel, raw sewage is being pumped into that very seawater. Alice Rothchild, a physician on the board of the Gaza Mental Health Foundation, notes “hospitals do not have clean water for sanitizing wounds, surgical instruments, and facilities. In addition, bed-wetting among children, a sign of extreme trauma, has skyrocketed due to the constant bombing, drones, and death. But there is often no way to wash their sheets and clothes, and children are forced to sleep on urine-soaked mattresses.”
Yet it’s the lack of drinking water throughout most of Gaza that puts people at risk of imminent death. I googled how long a person can live without water. According to Medical News Today, “Dehydration happens quickly, causing extreme thirst, fatigue, and ultimately, organ failure and death. A person may go from feeling thirsty and slightly sluggish on the first day with no water to having organ failure by the third.”
I’m not sure what definition of “humanitarian crisis” the Israeli ambassador is using. Perhaps the real issue is that he does not consider Palestinians human.
I know, I was making fun of the post I commented on for trying to justify collective punishment.