Between the tents of displacement and the whistling of the tanks.. the Gazans are living in the most dangerous water crises

The people of Gaza don’t need many words to explain the extent of their suffering from the water crisis. Just walk down an alley or past one of the tents that have spread like a gray sea across the Gaza Strip, and you’ll find dozens of buckets lined up, waiting for a trickle of water that never arrives, or arrives intermittently, like labored breaths.

Despite the arrival of cold weather and the resulting decrease in consumption, the water crisis deepens day by day. Obtaining a few liters a day has become a dream haunting more than two million citizens, who stand on the brink of thirst in a region surrounded by the sea but deprived of the blessing of water.

In every neighborhood, residents rush after water trucks as if chasing their last chance at life. The truck’s whistle has become a daily melody all too familiar to the people of Gaza, raising the level of anxiety in every tent. It’s either arriving early to secure a place in line, or returning empty-handed. Mohammed Hamouda, one of the displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area of ​​Khan Younis, says, holding his bucket: “We live above a huge water reservoir, yet we are dying of thirst. What we get daily isn’t enough for one person, let alone a whole family.”

Then he points to the tents around him: “Even the water we find in the ground is no longer usable. The soil is seeping in, the debris is there, and there’s no treatment whatsoever… everything is contaminated.”

During the war, the occupation forces destroyed most of the water wells and pumping stations, and targeted trucks, workers, and displaced people themselves as they searched for water.

With the near-total fuel shortage, the remaining operational wells became unusable.