Failing Gaza: undrinkable water, no access to toilets and little hope on the horizon.
Palestinians in Gaza remember a time when almost everyone could drink clean water from the tap.
Now less than four percent of fresh water is drinkable and the surrounding sea is polluted by sewage.
Her home is not connected to a sewage system so the family relies on open, uncovered pits to collect sewage, which they empty themselves.
Gaza’s water and sanitation crisis is escalating dangerously, with clean water increasingly scarce and almost a third of households not connected to a sanitation system.
Less than 16% of items needed to construct vital water infrastructure are reaching Gaza Israel’s blockade of Gaza severely limits materials from entering, making it incredibly difficult to develop water and sanitation infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing population.
A project which could see the Amir family and other homes nearby connected to a sanitation system has been delayed due to essential equipment, such as water pipes and pumps, being until recently blocked from entering Gaza.
In the wake of the devastation in Gaza in 2014, the UN brokered an agreement – the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM) – between the Palestinian Authority and the Government of Israel, so construction materials could enter Gaza more easily.
Lack of funding and limited coordination have fatal consequences for families in Gaza: the international community must act Confronted with Israeli-imposed restrictions, even major donors are failing to facilitate the necessary equipment at the scale or speed needed to repair and develop Gaza’s deficient infrastructure.
The international community, including governments such as the UK, Germany and the Netherlands who fund the mechanism, must ensure that the security concerns of Israel do not violate the rights of civilians under occupation and therefore must immediately increase efforts to pressure Israel to allow the entry of materials.