Gaza- Muhammad Al -Shaer faces a daily hardship in order to manage his family’s water needs for drinking and personal and home cleaning, in light of the suspension of municipal services Khan Yunis In the south Gaza StripFor the fourth consecutive day, as a result of the Israeli occupation preventing the fuel supplies needed to operate water and sanitation facilities and pumps and services to provide services.
The municipality was pumping water twice a week for the residents and displaced people in residential squares and the accommodation centers and camps that were not overlooked by the extensive evacuation warnings, which currently include the majority of the major area of the province from among the five governorates of the sector, and it is inhabited by about 900 thousand people of its residents and the displaced in it.
The 54 -year -old poet supported a family of 10 individuals, who were forced to flee from the “Joura Al -Lot” area in East Khan Yunis to its west.
Thirst
Before his displacement, the poet relied on tanks affiliated with charitable bodies and initiatives that distribute fresh water for drinking for free, and provides salt water for personal hygiene and home uses from the municipality lines and stores them in bodies that are sufficient until the next date for its connection.
He is currently complaining of a complete interruption of water in the area where the westAl -Misaea areaWhere the majority of the residents of Khan Yunis and the displaced are accumulated in it, and this unemployed man says since the outbreak of the war after the seventh of October 2023, “We face a major crisis, and I do not have money to buy food, so what about the water?”
The displaced, Muhammad Sultan, shares the same suffering, and tells Al -Jazeera Net that water supplies have declined significantly during the past days.
Sultan, 61, and his family (27 individuals), resides in tents inside a camp for the displaced in the Al -Mawsa area, since they were displaced from a city Rafah Last May, and about a week ago, this camp is suffering similar to all other camps from the lack of drinking water and hygiene, he confirms.
The municipality’s announcement of its vital services stopped from the deterioration of the living and humanitarian reality of the city’s residents and the displaced, most of whom reside in tents and shelter centers in the uncharacty supreme advice, which are subjected to continuous reduction due to the continuous shelling and evacuation warnings, which threatens the occurrence of an environmental, health and immediate disaster, according to the municipality’s emergency committee.
Sultan says, “We are in Gaza in a race with death, which accompanies us like the shadow of our bodies, and we are chasing us in every step and everywhere,” and he adds – and he lost his house in Rafah and escaped about 3 months before an air strike targeting a tent adjacent to his tent – “Death has become closer to us than any time, and each of us in Gaza feels that he stands in a queue waiting for death either by bombing, hunger, or thirst Medicine.
As a majority, the poet and Sultan per day are forced to pursue scarf tanks and separate points that provide water, and to stand in long and crowded lines in order to obtain a small amount that does not meet the basic needs.
Stifling siege
The “Emergency Committee” in the municipality of Khan Younis said that the crisis that is ravaged by the city is due to the prevention of the occupation to enter fuel to the international authorities and institutions, necessary to operate the facilities and water pumps and sanitation and the mechanisms of providing services.
According to an official source in the committee, who preferred not to be named for security reasons, this crisis harms about 425 thousand people living in Khan Yunis Governorate and within the scope of the influence of its seven municipalities (Khan Yunis and the eastern towns), in addition to about 280 thousand displaced people from the neighboring city of Rafah, and thousands of displaced people from other areas of the center and north of the sector.
To supply this high density with water, the municipality depended on 5 of the 45 wells that were destroyed and bulldozed, and a single ground water tank out of 5 destroyed the occupation with its construction and electromechanical structure, according to the spokesperson of the official to Al -Jazeera Net.
The water reality in the governorate has worsened with the widespread evacuation orders and the great destruction of the eastern towns (including Abbasan Al -Kabeer, Al -Jadida Al -Jadida, Bani Suhaila, Khuzara, Al -Qarar and Al -Bukhari), and caused the exit of a water carrier from Israel from service.
The same source adds that the crises of a vehicle resulted from the large and wide evacuation of the majority of regions, towns and residential squares in the governorate, which exceed 95% of their total area estimated at 108 square kilometers, and the seven municipalities can no longer exercise their duties in these towns because the occupation classified them “dangerous fighting areas”, in addition to the lack of fuel.
Among them is a crisis of accumulating 250,000 tons of waste in temporary landfills, the largest in the “Al -Amal neighborhood” west of the city, and it is not possible to reach and deport it, which threatens the lives of citizens due to the spread of healthcare, deadly diseases and epidemics, according to the municipal official.
Massive destruction
Among the frequent military operations since the outbreak of the war, Khan Yunis Governorate has been exposed between December 5, 2023 and the sixth of April 2024, to a massive military operation, and the occupation forces were completely invaded, and wreaked havoc and destruction, which included residential buildings, civil facilities and infrastructure.
The occupation transformed the new towns of Khuza’a, Abbasan and Al -Qarara into disaster areas, in which the destruction is approximately 100%, in addition to tremendous destruction in the rest of the neighboring eastern towns, which are famous for agriculture, and represents the food basket of the residents of the province and other areas in the southern sector.
Within the influence of the municipality of Khan Yunis, which has an area of 54 square kilometers of the total area of the governorate, the official in the “Emergency Committee” says that the destruction included:
- 300 km of water networks.
- 4 ground water tanks with a capacity of 20 thousand cubic meters.
- 40 water wells out of 45 wells.
- 80 %of sewage lines and networks.
- 34 km of rain water drainage lines.
- 120 kilometers longitudinal.
- 20 of the 26 mechanisms owned by the municipality are used to provide vital services to the population.
- The occupation targeted the construction and electromechanical structure of 7 sewage stations out of 9 stations.
The city’s residents need about 300 thousand cubic meters of water per day, the same source confirms that nothing is currently available, due to the stopping of municipal services, and they depend to provide their daily needs on fresh water tanks, and what they extract by “Gaitus”, which are insufficient local wells.
Settled scheme
The majority of the city accumulates in coastal suits, which represents a third of its total area, which is an agricultural area that does not have paved roads by more than 80%, and is not eligible to accommodate the high density in terms of the lack of infrastructure to extend water and sanitation networks.
The Khan Yunis Governorate includes approximately 890 displaced camps spread in its various parts, especially in the quarrels, and these camps contain about 78 thousand tents, according to the Director General of the Government Media Office, Dr. Ismail Al -Thawabta.
Al -Thawabta – for Al -Jazeera Net – says that the displaced in these camps were forced to reside in them due to the massive destruction of approximately 92% of houses, residential buildings and installations in the province, pointing out that they lack the simplest elements of life, such as water, electricity and sanitation, which makes it a fertile environment for spreading diseases, and constitutes a real threat to the lives of civilians, especially children and the elderly.
In the opinion of the constants, the occupation aims to tighten the screws on Khan Yunis to achieve a number of military, political and strategic goals, most notably the creation of a wide population emptying through the policy of forced displacement and comprehensive destruction, within the framework of what is known as the “buffer zone” scheme based on deducting parts of the southern sector and changing the geographical and demographic reality in it.
And the fact that Khan Yunis is one of the major cities of the sectorPalestine In general, it is characterized by a vital geographical location and a large population extension, which makes it – according to the principles – a direct goal of the occupation, which by destroying it to impose a comprehensive deterrent equation, and sending a threat message to the rest of the sector, stating that “the resistance will be faced at a high price that civilians pay.”