Anatomy of a humanitarian crisis: Gaza mapped

How long before the fuel runs out? This question has been buzzing around since the start of the war in Gaza, along with all the questions that follow from it. How long before bread can no longer be baked? How long until the incubators fail?

On October 12, just days after the Hamas attack, the Israeli government announced it would cut off supplies to the area. The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places on earth and its 2.2 million inhabitants have been suffering from major shortages ever since. 1.5 million people have now been displaced and as Israeli troops converge on Gaza City, pressure is growing to allow emergency aid. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned already for a “humanitarian catastrophe unfolding before our eyes.”

According to the World Health Organisation Pregnant women and children in particular are at special risk due to the bombings, the lack of food, the barely functioning health centers and the collapsing infrastructure. It is estimated that there are fifty thousand pregnant women in the Gaza Strip. About 180 children are born every day.

Although there is now something more than 450 trucks were allowed into Gaza from Egypt with emergency aid, that is a drop in the ocean. Before the war, an average of five hundred trucks entered Gaza per day.

This humanitarian crisis is not new. In 2007, Israel imposed an air, land and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip to protect itself from attacks by Hamas. Gaza has since been surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire fences. The area’s 2.2 million residents depend on outside help for the supply of clean water, food, fuel, electricity, medicines and other goods. The economy in the Gaza Strip has been paralyzed by the occupation and even before this war, the food supply of 63 percent of Gazans was insecure.

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Undrinkable

Gaza, for example, has been struggling with a water crisis for decades. Not necessarily due to a lack of water, but due to its poor quality. Most water comes from a subsurface natural water reservoir, an aquifer. However, that water is very shallow and is contaminated by wastewater and intruding salt water. Excessive pumping – from Gaza and surrounding countries, including Israel – has damaged the aquifer in recent years seriously exhausted, causing the salt content to become increasingly higher. It is now 97 percent of the groundwater is not suitable for drinking water.

To solve that problem, part of the water is imported from Israel. Gaza also has three large desalination plants, but most residents depend on small, local companies that purify and desalinate the contaminated groundwater to some extent.

“That vulnerable infrastructure is now collapsing,” says Mark Zeitoun. He is the director of Geneva Water Hub and an expert in water diplomacy. Now that the power supply from Israel has almost completely stopped, causing regular power outages in Gaza for extended periods of time, most water cannot be purified. And due to the blockages of access roads, there is also not enough bottled water available. Many people now drink directly from the aquifer, Zeitoun says. “That water is so salty that you can barely grow crops with it.”

Although two of the three pipelines from Israel now supply some water to Gaza, this is far from enough. And the failure of wastewater processing plants is also a major risk, Zeitoun warns. “That is the other side of the water cycle. Wastewater accumulates and returns untreated to the aquifer. Not only sewage from toilets, but also from hospitals.” According to Zeitoun, the risk of diseases such as cholera is also increasing. “Nobody knows exactly what the long-term consequences are of the current situation.”

Treasure donker

The power outage causes a chain reaction in Gaza’s shaky infrastructure. In peacetime it comes approx half of electricity in Gaza from Israel. The other half is generated by the Gaza Strip’s only power plant, by solar panels and by private diesel generators.

Before the war, this was already inadequate, resulting in frequent and prolonged power outages. Now that Israel has completely cut off electricity and fuel supplies to Gaza, residents are struggling to communicate with each other and the outside world. Bakeries, hospitals and shelters are struggling like never before.

For example, many bakeries can no longer function. There is now only one flour mill active throughout the area. According to the United Nations the average Gaza resident lives on two pieces of bread a day.

Hospitals initially used generators and solar panels. Now that fuel supplies are running low and many solar panels have been destroyed during Israeli bombings, the end of these options is in sight.

Now 14 of the 35 hospitals ceased to function. Since last weekend, two of Gaza City’s largest hospitals have been operating only with smaller generators, which provide electricity for only a few hours a day. At night it is pitch dark in Gaza.

International calls are increasingly being made for Israel to do something about the humanitarian situation and to lift the total blockade. However, the Israeli government first demands that the Hamas hostages be released.

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