The collapse of water systems inGazais threatening the territory with devastating drought as well as hunger, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) has warned, amid fresh reports of casualties among desperate Palestinians seeking aid.
On Friday, at least 25 people awaiting aid trucks were killed by Israeli fire south of Netzarim in central Gaza, according to local health authorities.
More than a hundred Palestinians have died in recent days while trying either to reach aid distribution points managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a secretive US- and Israel- backed organisation that recently started to hand out food in the territory, or to offload the limited number of UN and commercial vehicles carrying flour and some other basics.
Such reports are difficult to confirm independently but appear corroborated in many details by interviews conducted with witnesses by the Guardian.
There were also reports of other casualties on Friday in Israeli airstrikes, with at least 12 people killed in an airstrike on a house belonging to the Ayyash family in the central town of Deir Al-Balah.
“Forty-three martyrs have fallen as a result of the ongoing Israeli bombardment on the Gaza Strip since dawn today, 26 of whom were waiting for humanitarian aid,” Mohammad al-Mughayyir, director of medical supply at the civil defence agency in Gaza, told AFP.
Israeli military officialssaid on Fridaythat warplanes had attacked 300 “terror targets” in Gaza during the week, including individual militants, weapons caches and positions used to attack Israeli forces.
One of the strikes killed a senior militant in the territory who had helped bury the bodies of two hostages seized during the attack led by Hamas into southern Israel in October 2023 which triggered the conflict, they said.
Israeli military officials have denied troops have killed Palestinian civilians seeking aid, saying troops have fired at “suspects” who are believed to pose a threat to them.
James Elder, Unicef spokesperson, told reporters in Geneva that he had many testimonials of women and children injured while trying to receive food aid, including a young boy who was wounded by a tank shell and later died of his injuries.
“There have been instances where information [was] shared that a [distribution] site is open, but then it’s communicated on social media that they’re closed, but that information was shared when Gaza’s internet was down and people had no access to it,” Elder said.
The GHF release information about opening hours of sites primarily on Facebook, which many in Gaza cannot access.
Food has become extremely scarce in Gaza since a tight blockade on all supplies was imposed by Israel throughout March and April, threatening many of the 2.3 million people who live there with a“critical risk of famine”.
Since the blockade was partially lifted last month, the UN has tried to bring in aid but has faced major obstacles, including rubble-choked roads, Israeli military restrictions, continuing airstrikes and growing anarchy. Many shipments have been stopped by ordinary Palestinians in Gaza and offloaded.
There is also an acute shortage of fuel, which is needed for pumps on boreholes and Gaza’s sole remaining desalination plant. None has been allowed into Gaza since the collapse of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in March.
“We are way below emergency standards in terms of drinking water for people in Gaza,” Elder added. “Children will begin to die of thirst … Just 40% of drinking water production facilities remain functional.”
The UN cut the operating hours of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in Gaza by a fifth in May to save fuel but reserves built up during the pause in the 20-month war are now almost exhausted, aid officials said.
Most of Gaza’s wastewater treatment plants, sewage systems, reservoirs and pipeshave been destroyed. In March, Israel cut off power supplies to the main desalination plants – a vital source of water for Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel hopes the GHF will replace the previous comprehensive system of aid distribution run by the UN, which Israeli officials claim allowed Hamas to steal and sell aid.
UN agencies and major aid groups, which have delivered humanitarian aid across Gaza since the start of 20-month-long war, haverejected the new system, saying it is impractical, inadequate and unethical. They deny there is widespread theft of aid by Hamas.
On Wednesday, the GHF said it had provided more than 30 million meals to the people of Gaza “safely and without incident” since it began operating last month.
Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 hostage during the 7 October 2023 attack. They still hold 53 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
The death toll in Gaza since the war broke out has reached more than 55,600, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry.