Gaza, Alray - Municipalities union in Gaza warned Wednesday in a statement of a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged Gaza Strip if the fuel crisis keeps worsening due to the closure of tunnels between Gaza and Egypt.

"Given the depleted fuel supplies in the Gaza Strip, dozens of organizations providing basic services may suspend working, and hundreds of public transportation vehicles may run no more, while many desalination facilities have already been off work," the statement said.

"The situation shall aslo threaten public health, particularly if sewage disposal facilities get out of service because of fuel shortage,"

They explained that "sewage chopper pumps may stop running at any time, thus hindering  wastewater treatment and disposal process in Gaza, adding  that "the surrounded areas of  cesspits would be flooded with the untreated  sewage".  

Several municipality in Gaza are forced to pump untreated sewage into sea water which led to  water pollution therein.

The Gaza Strip needs  of fuel are estimated at 150-200 tons of gas daily. 12 Million tons of kerosene and 5 million tons of benzene are needed annually, in addition to 10 million tons to run the Gaza power station.

The statement also explained that "the municipalities'  vehicles may stop collecting the wastes from the dumps spread over the Gaza Strip, which receive 600 tons of waste a day.

As fuel stopped to be imported is also putting drinking water supplies at risk, which means that Gazans will face water shortage crises in the coming days.

Gaza municipality union called on the International Community to shoulder responsibility to prevent any further deterioration in the humanitarian conditions for civilians in the Gaza Strip.