UN shelters across Gaza run out of water as Israel cuts essential supplies

According to a report by AP citing Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, about half a million Gaza residents have taken refuge in UN shelters across the territory and are running out of water.

“Gaza is running dry,” she said, adding that UN teams have also begun to ration water.

A quarter of a million people in Gaza moved to shelters over the past 24 hours, the majority of which are UN schools where “clean water has actually run out”, Inas Hamdan, another UNRWA spokeswoman was cited in the AP report.

Israel has pounded Gaza with airstrikes and told the estimated 1 million residents of the north to flee south ahead of its planned attack.

More than 2,300 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting erupted last weekend, said the Gaza health ministry. 

Relief groups have called for the protection of over 2 million civilians in Gaza and urged for an emergency corridor to be established for the transfer of humanitarian aid.

“The difference with this escalation is we don’t have medical aid coming in from outside, the border is closed, electricity is off and this constitutes a high danger for our patients,” Dr Mohammed Qandeel of Nasser Hospital in the southern Khan Younis area was quoted as saying in an AP report.

According to the report, doctors are worried for the lives of patients dependent on ventilators and those suffering from complex blast wounds needing around-the-clock care.

Medical officials at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital estimated at least 35,000 men, women and children crammed into the large open grounds, in the lobby and in the hallways, hoping the location would give them protection from the fighting.

(With inputs from AP)

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Updated: 15 Oct 2023, 07:57 PM IST