Nearly 2 million Palestinians who are living in Gaza are suffering from the shortage of clean drinking water nowadays. The water in Gaza is not fit for human consumption. The main hospital in Gaza –AL-Shifa hospital- reports that the available water in Gaza is causing chronic health problems and has caused high rates of child mortality.
With 4500 people living in one square kilometer, Gaza is one of most densely populated areas in the world. This has caused a huge demand for drinkable water in this young nation. The water provided by the municipal systems in Gaza is polluted; therefore most of people in Gaza buy desalinated water –which is sometimes too costly for people to buy – in order to minimize the dangerous affects of the water provided by the municipalities in Gaza.
According to the World Bulletin News network, families that are already living in severe poverty are forced to spend a third of their income on the purchase of privately bottled drinking water. Residents are dependent on an underground water aquifer that is corroded and contaminated with seawater and sewage. Israel confiscates 90% of available freshwater for itself, while less than 10% is allocated to Palestinians, according to the Project Censored report.
The water problem in Gaza is not only a humanitarian issue but also a political problem. Israel is the occupying power of Gaza. According to International Law, the occupying power should provide welfare for the occupied people and provide decent life. Palestinians living in Gaza are calling upon the international community to immediately intervene before 2016 arrives, by then the damage to Gaza’s aquifer will become irreversible