Heat and thirst drive families in Gaza to drink water that makes them sick
Thirst supersedes the fear of illness.
She fills small bottles for her son and daughter and pours a sip into a teacup for herself. What's left she adds to a jerrycan for later.
"We are forced to give it to our children because we have no alternative," Odeh, who was driven from her home in Khan Younis, said of the water. "It causes diseases for us and our children."
Such scenes have become the grim routine in Muwasi, a sprawling displacement camp in central Gaza where hundreds of thousands endure scorching summer heat. Sweat-soaked and dust-covered, parents and children chase down water trucks that come every two or three days, filling bottles, canisters and buckets and then hauling them home, sometimes on donkey-drawn carts.
Each drop is rationed for drinking, cooking, cleaning or washing. Some reuse what they can and save a couple of cloudy inches in their jerrycans for whatever tomorrow brings -- or doesn't.
When water fails to arrive, Odeh said, she and her son fill bottles from the sea.
Over the 22 months since Israel launched its offensive, Gaza's water access has been progressively strained. Limits on fuel imports and electricity have hampered the operation of desalination plants while infrastructure bottlenecks and pipeline damage choked delivery to a dribble. Gaza's aquifers became polluted by sewage and the wreckage of bombed buildings. Wells are mostly inaccessible or destroyed, aid groups and the local utility say.
Meanwhile, the water crisis has helped fuel the rampant spread of disease, on top of Gaza's rising starvation. UNRWA -- the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees -- said Thursday that its health centers now see an average 10,300 patients a week with infectious diseases, mostly diarrhea from contaminated water.
Efforts to ease the water shortage are in motion, but for many the prospect is still overshadowed by the risk of what may unfold before new supply comes.
And the thirst is only growing as a heat wave bears down, with humidity and temperatures in Gaza soaring on Friday to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit).
Searing heat and sullied water
Mahmoud al-Dibs, a father displaced from Gaza City to Muwasi, dumped water over his head from a flimsy plastic bag -- one of the vessels used to carry water in the camps.
"Outside the tents it is hot and inside the tents it is hot, so we are forced to drink this water wherever we go," he said.
Al-Dibs was among many who told The Associated Press they knowingly drink non-potable water.
The few people still possessing rooftop tanks can't muster enough water to clean them, so what flows from their taps is yellow and unsafe, said Bushra Khalidi, an official with Oxfam, an aid group working in Gaza.
Before the war, the coastal enclave's more than 2 million residents got their water from a patchwork of sources. Some was piped in by Mekorot, Israel's national water utility. Some came from desalination plants. Some was pulled from high-saline wells, and some imported in bottles.
Every source has been jeopardized.
Palestinians are relying more heavily on groundwater, which today makes up more than half of Gaza's supply. The well water has historically been brackish, but still serviceable for cleaning, bathing, or farming, according to Palestinian water officials and aid groups.
Now people have to drink it.
The effects of drinking unclean water don't always appear right away, said Mark Zeitoun, director general of the Geneva Water Hub, a policy institute.
"Untreated sewage mixes with drinking water, and you drink that or wash your food with it, then you're drinking microbes and can get dysentery," Zeitoun said. "If you're forced to drink salty, brackish water, it just does your kidneys in, and then you're on dialysis for decades."
Deliveries average less than three liters (12.5 cups) per person per day -- a fraction of the 15-liter (3.3-gallon) minimum humanitarian groups say is needed for drinking, cooking and basic hygiene. In February, acute watery diarrhea accounted for less than 20% of reported illnesses in Gaza. By July, it had surged to 44%, raising the risk of severe dehydration, according to UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency.
System breakdown
Early in the war, residents said deliveries from Israel's water company Mekorot were curtailed -- a claim that Israel has denied. Airstrikes destroyed some of the transmission pipelines as well as one of Gaza's three desalination plants.
Bombardment and advancing troops damaged or cut off wells -- to the point that today only 137 of Gaza's 392 wells are accessible, according to UNICEF. Water quality from some wells has deteriorated, fouled by sewage, the rubble of shattered buildings and the residue of spent munitions.
Fuel shortages have strained the system, slowing pumps at wells and the trucks that carry water. The remaining two desalination plants have operated far below capacity or ground to a halt at times, aid groups and officials say.
In recent weeks, Israel has taken some steps to reverse the damage. It delivers water via two of Mekorot's three pipelines into Gaza and reconnected one of the desalination plants to Israel's electricity grid, Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel told The Associated Press.
Still, the plants put out far less than before the war, Monther Shoblaq, head of Gaza's Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, told AP. That has forced him to make impossible choices.
The utility prioritizes getting water to hospitals and to people. But that means sometimes withholding water needed for sewage treatment, which can trigger neighborhood backups and heighten health risks.
Water hasn't sparked the same global outrage as limits on food entering Gaza. But Shoblaq warned of a direct line between the crisis and potential loss of life.
"It's obvious that you can survive for some days without food, but not without water," he said.
Supply's future
Water access is steadying after Israel's steps. Aid workers have grown hopeful that the situation won't get worse and could improve.
Southern Gaza could get more relief from a United Arab Emirates-funded desalination plant just across the border in Egypt. COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, said it has allowed equipment into the enclave to build a pipeline from the plant and deliveries could start in a few weeks.
The plant wouldn't depend on Israel for power, but since Israel holds the crossings, it will control the entry of water into Gaza for the foreseeable future.
But aid groups warn that access to water and other aid could be disrupted again by Israel's plans to launch a new offensive on some of the last areas outside its military control. Those areas include Gaza City and Muwasi, where much of Gaza's population is now located.
In Muwasi's tent camps, people line up for the sporadic arrivals of water trucks.
Hosni Shaheen, whose family was also displaced from Khan Younis, already sees the water he drinks as a last resort.
"It causes stomach cramps for adults and children, without exception," he said. "You don't feel safe when your children drink it."
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The Mainichi
a day ago
- The Mainichi
Heat and thirst drive families in Gaza to drink water that makes them sick
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) -- After waking early to stand in line for an hour under the August heat, Rana Odeh returns to her tent with her jug of murky water. She wipes the sweat from her brow and strategizes how much to portion out to her two small children. From its color alone, she knows full well it's likely contaminated. Thirst supersedes the fear of illness. She fills small bottles for her son and daughter and pours a sip into a teacup for herself. What's left she adds to a jerrycan for later. "We are forced to give it to our children because we have no alternative," Odeh, who was driven from her home in Khan Younis, said of the water. "It causes diseases for us and our children." Such scenes have become the grim routine in Muwasi, a sprawling displacement camp in central Gaza where hundreds of thousands endure scorching summer heat. Sweat-soaked and dust-covered, parents and children chase down water trucks that come every two or three days, filling bottles, canisters and buckets and then hauling them home, sometimes on donkey-drawn carts. Each drop is rationed for drinking, cooking, cleaning or washing. Some reuse what they can and save a couple of cloudy inches in their jerrycans for whatever tomorrow brings -- or doesn't. When water fails to arrive, Odeh said, she and her son fill bottles from the sea. Over the 22 months since Israel launched its offensive, Gaza's water access has been progressively strained. Limits on fuel imports and electricity have hampered the operation of desalination plants while infrastructure bottlenecks and pipeline damage choked delivery to a dribble. Gaza's aquifers became polluted by sewage and the wreckage of bombed buildings. Wells are mostly inaccessible or destroyed, aid groups and the local utility say. Meanwhile, the water crisis has helped fuel the rampant spread of disease, on top of Gaza's rising starvation. UNRWA -- the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees -- said Thursday that its health centers now see an average 10,300 patients a week with infectious diseases, mostly diarrhea from contaminated water. Efforts to ease the water shortage are in motion, but for many the prospect is still overshadowed by the risk of what may unfold before new supply comes. And the thirst is only growing as a heat wave bears down, with humidity and temperatures in Gaza soaring on Friday to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). Searing heat and sullied water Mahmoud al-Dibs, a father displaced from Gaza City to Muwasi, dumped water over his head from a flimsy plastic bag -- one of the vessels used to carry water in the camps. "Outside the tents it is hot and inside the tents it is hot, so we are forced to drink this water wherever we go," he said. Al-Dibs was among many who told The Associated Press they knowingly drink non-potable water. The few people still possessing rooftop tanks can't muster enough water to clean them, so what flows from their taps is yellow and unsafe, said Bushra Khalidi, an official with Oxfam, an aid group working in Gaza. Before the war, the coastal enclave's more than 2 million residents got their water from a patchwork of sources. Some was piped in by Mekorot, Israel's national water utility. Some came from desalination plants. Some was pulled from high-saline wells, and some imported in bottles. Every source has been jeopardized. Palestinians are relying more heavily on groundwater, which today makes up more than half of Gaza's supply. The well water has historically been brackish, but still serviceable for cleaning, bathing, or farming, according to Palestinian water officials and aid groups. Now people have to drink it. The effects of drinking unclean water don't always appear right away, said Mark Zeitoun, director general of the Geneva Water Hub, a policy institute. "Untreated sewage mixes with drinking water, and you drink that or wash your food with it, then you're drinking microbes and can get dysentery," Zeitoun said. "If you're forced to drink salty, brackish water, it just does your kidneys in, and then you're on dialysis for decades." Deliveries average less than three liters (12.5 cups) per person per day -- a fraction of the 15-liter (3.3-gallon) minimum humanitarian groups say is needed for drinking, cooking and basic hygiene. In February, acute watery diarrhea accounted for less than 20% of reported illnesses in Gaza. By July, it had surged to 44%, raising the risk of severe dehydration, according to UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency. System breakdown Early in the war, residents said deliveries from Israel's water company Mekorot were curtailed -- a claim that Israel has denied. Airstrikes destroyed some of the transmission pipelines as well as one of Gaza's three desalination plants. Bombardment and advancing troops damaged or cut off wells -- to the point that today only 137 of Gaza's 392 wells are accessible, according to UNICEF. Water quality from some wells has deteriorated, fouled by sewage, the rubble of shattered buildings and the residue of spent munitions. Fuel shortages have strained the system, slowing pumps at wells and the trucks that carry water. The remaining two desalination plants have operated far below capacity or ground to a halt at times, aid groups and officials say. In recent weeks, Israel has taken some steps to reverse the damage. It delivers water via two of Mekorot's three pipelines into Gaza and reconnected one of the desalination plants to Israel's electricity grid, Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel told The Associated Press. Still, the plants put out far less than before the war, Monther Shoblaq, head of Gaza's Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, told AP. That has forced him to make impossible choices. The utility prioritizes getting water to hospitals and to people. But that means sometimes withholding water needed for sewage treatment, which can trigger neighborhood backups and heighten health risks. Water hasn't sparked the same global outrage as limits on food entering Gaza. But Shoblaq warned of a direct line between the crisis and potential loss of life. "It's obvious that you can survive for some days without food, but not without water," he said. Supply's future Water access is steadying after Israel's steps. Aid workers have grown hopeful that the situation won't get worse and could improve. Southern Gaza could get more relief from a United Arab Emirates-funded desalination plant just across the border in Egypt. COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, said it has allowed equipment into the enclave to build a pipeline from the plant and deliveries could start in a few weeks. The plant wouldn't depend on Israel for power, but since Israel holds the crossings, it will control the entry of water into Gaza for the foreseeable future. But aid groups warn that access to water and other aid could be disrupted again by Israel's plans to launch a new offensive on some of the last areas outside its military control. Those areas include Gaza City and Muwasi, where much of Gaza's population is now located. In Muwasi's tent camps, people line up for the sporadic arrivals of water trucks. Hosni Shaheen, whose family was also displaced from Khan Younis, already sees the water he drinks as a last resort. "It causes stomach cramps for adults and children, without exception," he said. "You don't feel safe when your children drink it."
The Mainichi
a day ago
- The Mainichi
Misunderstanding has hospitalized teen in Japan losing first, perhaps last, chance to vote
NAGOYA -- It was his first chance, and maybe his last chance, to cast a vote. That's what one mother in Aichi Prefecture thought as she said to her 18-year-old son, "You know, you can vote even from your hospital room. Want to give it a try?" Shortly after Japan's July House of Councillors' election was announced, the 53-year-old woman showed her 18-year-old son, lying in his hospital bed, a notice about absentee voting distributed by the hospital. This was the first election in which he was eligible to cast a ballot. Her son had been at a university hospital in the prefecture for about six months with a brain tumor. He cannot walk on his own, spends most of his time in bed, and uses a wheelchair to get around. Depending on his condition, he sometimes drifts in and out of consciousness and cannot always respond clearly. But on this day, he answered his mother's question. "Yeah, I want to try voting." About a month before the election, the woman was told by her son's doctor that he had only a few months left to live. She had not told her son, but because every day was lived with the awareness of death, she wanted to help him leave as many "proofs of life" as possible. His words made her happy. A hope dashed One day in mid-July, absentee voting was held at the hospital. For patients like her son, who could not make it to the hospital's voting station, nurses visited rooms so patients could vote from their beds. Unfortunately, her son was running a fever of nearly 39 degrees Celsius that day. When the head nurse visited his room, his mother was out making a phone call. The nurse asked her son if he wanted to vote, but he reportedly replied in a fevered daze, "No, it's fine." He was then marked down as declining to vote. When the woman learned what had happened, she was shocked. She checked with the hospital, but they maintained, "He himself indicated he did not wish to vote." However, her son says he has "no memory" of the exchange. When he learned he had missed his chance, he murmured, "I wish I could have voted..." Did her son really refuse to vote? The woman's doubts linger. "I wish they'd waited a little and checked his intention again when he was more alert, instead of when he was out of it. If a patient is going to abstain, couldn't they at least have them sign something?" Hospitals' burdens and limitations In response to the woman's concerns, the hospital explained, "Absentee voting is only available for one day, and the time is fixed. With so many patients and wards to cover, it's difficult to come back and check again when someone is feeling better." According to the hospital, about 161 of the roughly 660 inpatients requested absentee ballots for this upper house election. Of these, 21 were discharged before election day, and seven, including her son, were unable to vote due to illness. For absentee voting in hospitals, staff must handle everything: confirming patients' intent to vote, requesting ballots from the municipality where the patient is registered, setting up the voting station, overseeing the voting, and managing and sending the ballots. At this hospital, voting was limited to a single day, with two-hour voting windows in the morning and afternoon, squeezed in between regular hospital duties. A conference room was set up as a polling place, and many nurses and administrative staff helped by escorting patients, overseeing voting or visiting rooms of those unable to move. A hospital official said, "There are limits to the time and staff we can devote to absentee voting," adding, "We hope the election commission will take the lead, such as by dispatching staff." Still, the burden on hospitals, already busy with inpatients and outpatients, is heavy. "We would like to see the introduction of online voting or other systems that allow voters to complete the process themselves," the official went on to say. A single vote as proof of life The woman understands how busy the nurses are. But for her son, whose remaining time may be short, this could have been his first and last vote. As his mother, she desperately wanted him to have the experience. "Even if my son were to pass away, his one vote would live on for the six years of an upper house lawmaker's term. I wanted it to be a testament to his life," she said. She cannot shake her doubts about the current election system. "If they want to raise voter turnout, I wish they would be more flexible. I can't help but feel that precious votes are being treated too lightly." How can patients' voting rights be protected? Absentee voting at hospitals and nursing homes has seen its share of mistakes and problems across Japan. In this upper house election, a hospital in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, failed to mail two patients' ballots, rendering their votes invalid. So how can patients' right to vote be protected? Yasuhiro Yuki, a professor of social welfare at Shukutoku University who served on a national expert panel on improving voting environments, said, "Given the costs and staffing, it's difficult for hospitals to offer multiple voting days." As a solution, he suggested "relaxing the requirements for postal voting." Currently, postal voting is limited to people with severe lower-body disabilities or those certified as requiring the highest level of nursing care. "If the system were expanded to include seriously ill people confined to hospital beds, they could vote when they are feeling well," he said.
Yomiuri Shimbun
2 days ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Cholera Is Spreading Rapidly in Darfur in the Worst Outbreak in Years
CAIRO (AP) — Cholera is spreading rapidly in Darfur, killing 40 people and infecting more than 2,300 over the past week alone because of water shortages and a collapsed health care system have left communities vulnerable amid the ongoing war in Sudan, Doctors Without Borders said in a report Thursday. The group, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF, said that hte outbreak was the worst the North African country has seen in years. As of Monday, a total of 99,700 suspected cases and more than 2,470 related deaths have been reported in Sudan since the cholera outbreak began in July 2024, according to MSF. While some vaccination campaigns that kicked off at the time managed to contain the disease, more people have been infected over the past few months because of poor hygiene measures and large numbers of people being displaced amid intensified fighting in the Darfur and Kordofan regions. The civil war erupted in April 2023 in Khartoum before spreading across the country. The fighting between the Sudanese military, its allies, and rival paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, has killed more than 40,000 people, displaced as many as 12 million, caused disease outbreaks and pushed many to the brink of famine. The World Health Organization describes cholera as a 'disease of poverty,' because it spreads where there is poor sanitation and a lack of clean water. The diarrheal disease is caused when people eat food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It is easily treatable with rehydration solutions and antibiotics, but in severe cases the disease can kill within hours if left untreated. Heavy rains worsened the situation by damaging sewage systems and creating stagnant water that became contaminated. 'The situation is most extreme in Tawila, North Darfur state, where 380,000 people have fled to escape ongoing fighting around the city of El Fasher, according to the United Nations,' MSF said Thursday. The medical group added that Tawila Hospital was overwhelmed by around 400 cholera patients earlier this month, when it only had the capacity for 130 people. Many had to be treated on the floor. 'Overcrowding of the camps and the catastrophic hygiene condition are key factors,' Sylvain Penicaud, MSF project coordinator in Tawila, North Darfur, told The Associated Press by phone. Recent displacement fueled by the fighting is another contributing factor to the outbreak. People are forced to take water from contaminated sources such as community wells that are 'extremely dirty.' The hygiene situation in Tawila is dire, he said. MSF plans to launch a vaccination campaign in Tawila as soon they receive 400,000 doses of cholera vaccine in coordination with WHO. North Darfur's capital city, el-Fasher, and its surrounding areas have seen repeated waves of violence recently. On Monday, the RSF attacked the famine-stricken displacement camp of Abu Shouk outside the city, killing 40 people and wounding at least 19 people. On Monday, the RSF denied targeting civilians in el-Fasher, but didn't mention attacks in Abu Shouk camp in a statement on its Telegram channel. The paramilitary accused Islamic Movement militias and 'mercenaries of the armed movements' of endangering the lives of civilians and using them as 'human shields in a desperate attempt to hinder' forces' advancements. 'The Rapid Support Forces reaffirms its commitment to continuing to open safe corridors for the departure of civilians from El Fasher to other, safer areas,' the group said.
