ALRAY, Gaza Strip - The barbaric and brutal Israeli occupation continues its aggression against the Gaza Strip, targeting all aspects of life and people from all walks of life, including women and children.

Since Monday, the Israeli occupation has been closing all of Gaza's crossings, further restricting the movement of people, goods and aid and resulting in a severe lack of fuel needed to operate the besieged enclave's only power plant.

Therefore, this has led to dramatic shortages of power required to operate water and sanitation facilities. Furthermore, the Israeli occupation has bombed water facilities across the Gaza Strip, including water networks and wells and water and sewage pumping stations, making it difficult to access, operate or carry out maintenance work on these facilities in the event of any malfunction. 

This will aggravate the suffering of local residents in terms of the quality of water and sanitation services provided to them. Consequently, they will not be able to access their required share of drinking water in terms of quantity and quality, and thus negatively affects public health.

Furthermore, any damage to sewage networks or treatment plants would negatively affect human life and the environment, especially groundwater resources.

Accordingly, in order to protect the Palestinian people and their water and environmental resources, the Water and Environmental Quality Authority warns of the ongoing attacks and inhumane practices carried out by the Israeli occupation that would inflict widespread damage to human life and the environment in the Gaza Strip.

We call on the Arab and Muslim world, the international community and the free peoples of the world to urgently intervene and put an end to the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and provide protection for the Palestinian people and their resources. 

The Palestinian Water and Environmental Quality Authority

Sunday, 6 August 2022