AFP Asia Business

Atop air strikes, displacement and hunger, an unprecedented water crisis is unfolding across Gaza, heaping further misery on the Palestinian territory’s residents.Gaza was already suffering a water crisis before nearly 22 months of war between Israel and Hamas damaged more than 80 percent of the territory’s water infrastructure.”Sometimes, I feel like my body is drying from the inside, thirst is stealing all my energy and that of my children,” Um Nidal Abu Nahl, a mother of four living in Gaza City, told AFP.Water trucks sometimes reach residents and NGOs install taps in camps for a lucky few, but it is far from sufficient.Israel connected some water mains in north Gaza to the Israeli water company Mekorot, after cutting off supplies early in the war, but residents told AFP water still wasn’t flowing.Local authorities said this was due to war damage to Gaza’s water distribution network, with many mains pipes destroyed.Gaza City spokesman Assem al-Nabih told AFP that the municipality’s part of the network supplied by Mekorot had not functioned in nearly two weeks.Wells that supplied some needs before the war have also been damaged, with some contaminated by sewage which goes untreated because of the conflict.Many wells in Gaza are simply not accessible, because they are inside active combat zones, too close to Israeli military installations or in areas subject to evacuation orders.At any rate, wells usually run on electric pumps and energy has been scarce since Israel turned off Gaza’s power as part of its war effort.Generators could power the pumps, but hospitals are prioritised for the limited fuel deliveries. Lastly, Gaza’s desalination plants are down, save for a single site reopened last week after Israel restored its electricity supply.- Sewage floods -Nabih, from the Gaza City municipality, told AFP the infrastructure situation was bleak.More than 75 percent of wells are out of service, 85 percent of public works equipment destroyed, 100,000 metres of water mains damaged and 200,000 metres of sewers unusable.Pumping stations are down and 250,000 tons of rubbish is clogging the streets.”Sewage floods the areas where people live due to the destruction of infrastructure,” says Mohammed Abu Sukhayla from the northern city of Jabalia. In order to find water, hundreds of thousands of people are still trying to extract groundwater directly from wells.But coastal Gaza’s aquifer is naturally brackish and far exceeds salinity standards for potable water.In 2021, the UN children’s agency UNICEF warned that nearly 100 percent of Gaza’s groundwater was unfit for consumption.With clean water nearly impossible to find, some Gazans falsely believe brackish water to be free of bacteria.Aid workers in Gaza have had to warn repeatedly that even if residents can get used to the taste, their kidneys will inevitably suffer.- Spreading diseases -Though Gaza’s water crisis has received less media attention than the ongoing hunger one, its effects are just as deadly.”Just like food, water should never be used for political ends,” UNICEF spokeswoman Rosalia Bollen said.She told AFP that, while it’s very difficult to quantify the water shortage, “there is a severe lack of drinking water”. “It’s extremely hot, diseases are spreading and water is truly the issue we’re not talking about enough,” she added.Opportunities to get clean water are as dangerous as they are rare. On July 13, as a crowd had gathered around a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, at least eight people were killed by an Israeli strike, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.A United Arab Emirates-led project authorised by Israel is expected to bring a 6.7-kilometre pipeline from an Egyptian desalination plant to the coastal area of Al-Mawasi, in Gaza’s south.The project is controversial within the humanitarian community, because some see it as a way of justifying the concentration of displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza.-‘Fear and helplessness’-On July 24, a committee representing Gaza’s prominent families issued a cry for help, calling for “the immediate provision of water and humanitarian aid, the rapid repair of infrastructure, and a guarantee for the entry of fuel”.Gaza aid workers that AFP spoke to stressed that there was no survival without drinking water, and no disease prevention without sanitation.”The lack of access, the general deterioration of the situation in an already fragile environment — at the very least, the challenges are multiplying,” a diplomatic source working on these issues told AFP.Mahmoud Deeb, 35, acknowledged that the water he finds in Gaza City is often undrinkable, but his family has no alternative.”We know it’s polluted, but what can we do? I used to go to water distribution points carrying heavy jugs on my back, but even those places were bombed,” he added. At home, everyone is thirsty — a sensation he associated with “fear and helplessness.””You become unable to think or cope with anything.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross on Sunday for help aiding hostages in Gaza, as outrage built at videos showing two of them emaciated.The premier’s office said he spoke to the ICRC coordinator for the region, Julien Lerisson, and “requested his involvement in providing food to our hostages and… immediate medical treatment”.The ICRC said in a statement it was “appalled by the harrowing videos” and reiterated its “call to be granted access to the hostages”.In response, Hamas’s armed wing said it would allow the agency access to the hostages but only if “humanitarian corridors” for food and aid were opened “across all areas of the Gaza Strip”.The Al-Qassam Brigades said it did “not intentionally starve” the hostages, but they would not receive any special food privileges “amid the crime of starvation and siege” in Gaza.Over recent days, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have released three videos showing two hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war.The images of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David, both of whom appeared weak and malnourished, have fuelled renewed calls in Israel for a truce and hostage release deal.A statement from Netanyahu’s office on Saturday said he had spoken with the families of the two hostages and “expressed profound shock over the materials distributed by the terror organisations”.Netanyahu “told the families that the efforts to return all our hostages are ongoing”, the statement added.Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of people had rallied in the coastal hub of Tel Aviv to call on Netanyahu’s government to secure the release of the remaining captives.There was particular outrage in Israel over images of David, who appeared to be digging what he said in the staged video was his own grave.The videos make references to the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned a “famine is unfolding”.An emergency session on the “dire situation of the hostages” will be convened by the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Israel’s UN ambassador said Sunday in a post on X.EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the images “are appalling and expose the barbarity of Hamas”, calling for the release of “all hostages… immediately and unconditionally”.  – ‘Hamas must disarm’ -Kallas said in the same post on X that “Hamas must disarm and end its rule in Gaza” — demands endorsed earlier this week by Arab countries, including key mediators Qatar and Egypt.She added that “large-scale humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach those in need”.Israel has heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, while UN agencies, humanitarian groups and analysts say that much of what Israel does allow in is looted or diverted in chaotic circumstances.Many desperate Palestinians are left to risk their lives seeking what aid is distributed through controlled channels.On Sunday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed nine Palestinians who were waiting to collect food rations from a site operated by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) near the southern city of Rafah.”The soldiers opened fire on people. I was there, no one posed any threat” to the Israeli forces, 31-year-old witness Jabr al-Shaer told AFP by phone.There was no comment from the military.Five more people were killed near a different GHF aid site in central Gaza on Sunday, while Israeli attacks elsewhere killed another five people, said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.- ‘Emaciated and desperate’ -Braslavski and David are among the 49 hostages taken during Hamas’s 2023 attack who are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.Most of the 251 hostages seized in the attack were released during two short-lived truces, some in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody.Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,430 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which are deemed reliable by the UN.The Palestine Red Crescent Society said one of its staff members was killed in an Israeli attack on its Khan Yunis headquarters, in southern Gaza.Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was “not aware of a strike” in that area.Media restrictions and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP cannot independently verify tolls and details provided by various parties.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross on Sunday to aid hostages in Gaza, as outrage built at videos showing two of them emaciated.The premier’s office said he spoke to the ICRC coordinator for the region, Julien Lerisson, and “requested his involvement in providing food to our hostages and… immediate medical treatment”.The ICRC said in a statement it was “appalled by the harrowing videos” and reiterated its “call to be granted access to the hostages”.In response, Hamas’s armed wing said that it would allow the agency access to the hostages but only if “humanitarian corridors” for food and aid were opened “across all areas of the Gaza Strip.”The Al-Qassam Brigades said it did “not intentionally starve” the hostages, but they would not receive any special food privileges “amid the crime of starvation and siege” in Gaza.Over recent days, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have released three videos showing two hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war.The images of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David, both of whom appeared weak and malnourished, have fuelled renewed calls in Israel for a truce and hostage release deal.A statement from Netanyahu’s office on Saturday said he had spoken with the families of the two hostages and “expressed profound shock over the materials distributed by the terror organisations”.Netanyahu “told the families that the efforts to return all our hostages are ongoing”, the statement added.Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of people had rallied in the coastal hub of Tel Aviv to call on Netanyahu’s government to secure the release of the remaining captives.There was particular outrage in Israel over images of David, who appeared to be digging what he said in the staged video was his own grave.The videos make references to the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned a “famine is unfolding”.EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the images “are appalling and expose the barbarity of Hamas”, calling for the release of “all hostages… immediately and unconditionally”.- ‘Hamas must disarm’ -Kallas said in the same post on X that “Hamas must disarm and end its rule in Gaza” — demands endorsed earlier this week by Arab countries, including key mediators Qatar and Egypt.She added that “large-scale humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach those in need”.Israel has heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, while UN agencies, humanitarian groups and analysts say that much of what Israel does allow in is looted or diverted in chaotic circumstances.Many desperate Palestinians are left to risk their lives seeking what aid is distributed through controlled channels.On Sunday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed nine Palestinians who were waiting to collect food rations from a site operated by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) near the southern city of Rafah.”The soldiers opened fire on people. I was there, no one posed any threat” to the Israeli forces, 31-year-old witness Jabr al-Shaer told AFP by phone.There was no comment from the military.Five more people were killed near a different GHF aid site in central Gaza on Sunday, while Israeli attacks elsewhere killed another five people, said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.- ‘Emaciated and desperate’ -Braslavski and David are among the 49 hostages taken during Hamas’s 2023 attack who are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.Most of the 251 hostages seized in the attack were released during two short-lived truces, some in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody.Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,430 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which are deemed reliable by the UN.The Palestine Red Crescent Society said one of its staff members was killed in an Israeli attack on its Khan Yunis headquarters, in southern Gaza.Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was “not aware of a strike” in that area.Media restrictions and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP cannot independently verify tolls and details provided by various parties.- ‘Provocation’ -In Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir conducted a Jewish prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third-holiest site, and called for the annexation of Gaza. The site is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, though they are barred from praying there under a long-standing convention. This was the first time a government minister openly prayed inside the compound, Israeli media reported.In a statement filmed at the compound, Ben Gvir said that “the response to Hamas’s horror videos” should include annexing Gaza and the “voluntary emigration” of its population.

Thousands of Palestinians protested in the occupied West Bank’s major cities Sunday against the war in Gaza and in support of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.One of the largest marches took place in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority located just north of Jerusalem, with hundreds gathering at the main square, waving Palestinian flags.Many protesters carried photos of Palestinians killed or imprisoned by Israel, as well as photos depicting the hunger crisis unfolding in the Gaza Strip, where UN-backed experts have warned that a “famine is unfolding”.”My son is in (Israel’s) Megido prison and he suffers from many things, such as the lack of medicine the lack of food,” Rula Ghanem, a Palestinian academic and writer who took part in the march, told AFP.She told AFP that her son had lost 10 kilograms and suffered from scabies in jail.The number of Palestinians jailed by Israel skyrocketed after the start of the war in Gaza, some for violent acts, but some also for posting political statements on social media, the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs says.The commission’s spokesman Thaer Shriteh told AFP: “The international community is a partner in all this suffering, as long as it does not intervene quickly to save the Palestinian people and save the prisoners inside the prisons and detention centre.”A group of protesters dressed as skeletons and carried dolls around to symbolise the Gaza war’s dire effect on children, who are most at risk of malnutrition.Israel has heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, which was already under blockade for 15 years before the war began.UN agencies, humanitarian groups and analysts say that much of the trickle of food aid that Israel allows in is looted or diverted in chaotic circumstances.”We hope that our stand today will have an impact in supporting our people in Gaza and the hungry children in Gaza,” said 39-year-old Tagreed Ziada, one of the protesters at the Ramallah march.Protests were held Sunday in other major Palestinian cities such as Nablus in the north and Hebron in the south, with many government employees receiving a day off to attend the demonstrations.While there have been somewhat regular demonstrations against the war in Gaza, they are rarely coordinated across various cities in the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed “profound shock” over videos showing two emaciated hostages in Gaza, with the EU also denouncing the clips on Sunday and demanding the release of all remaining captives after nearly 22 months of war.Over the past few days, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have released three videos showing two hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.The images of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David have sparked strong reactions among Israelis, fuelling renewed calls to reach a truce and hostage release deal without delay.A statement from Netanyahu’s office late Saturday said he had spoken with the families of the two hostages and “expressed profound shock over the materials distributed by the terror organisations”.Netanyahu “told the families that the efforts to return all our hostages are ongoing”, the statement added.Earlier in the day, tens of thousands of people had rallied in the coastal hub of Tel Aviv to urge Netanyahu’s government to secure the release of the remaining captives.In the clips shared by the Palestinian Islamist groups, 21-year-old Braslavski, a German-Israeli dual national, and 24-year-old David both appear weak and malnourished.There was particular outrage in Israel over images of David who appeared to be digging what he said in the staged video was his own grave.The videos make references to the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned a “famine is unfolding”.EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the images “are appalling and expose the barbarity of Hamas”, calling for the release of “all hostages… immediately and unconditionally”.- ‘Hamas must disarm’ -Kallas said in the same post on X that “Hamas must disarm and end its rule in Gaza” — demands endorsed earlier this week by Arab countries, including key mediators Qatar and Egypt.She added that “large-scale humanitarian aid must be allowed to reach those in need”.Israel has heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, which was already under blockade for 15 years before the war began.UN agencies, humanitarian groups and analysts say that much of the trickle of food aid that Israel allows in is looted or diverted in chaotic circumstances.Many desperate Palestinians are left to risk their lives under fire seeking what aid is distributed through controlled channels.On Sunday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed nine Palestinians who were waiting to collect food rations from a site operated by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) near the southern city of Rafah.”The soldiers opened fire on people. I was there, no one posed any threat” to the Israeli forces, 31-year-old witness Jabr al-Shaer told AFP by phone.There was no comment from the military.Five more people were killed near a different GHF aid site in central Gaza on Sunday, while Israeli attacks elsewhere killed another five people, said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.- ‘Emaciated and desperate’ -Israeli newspapers dedicated their front pages on Sunday to the plight of the hostages, with Maariv decrying “hell in Gaza” and Yedioth Ahronoth showing a “malnourished, emaciated and desperate” David.Left-leaning Haaretz declared that “Netanyahu is in no rush” to rescue the captives, echoing claims by critics that the longtime leader has prolonged the war for his own political survival.Braslavski and David are among the 49 hostages taken during Hamas’s 2023 attack who are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.Most of the 251 hostages seized in the attack have been released during two short-lived truces in the war, some in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli custody.Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to a tally based on official figures.Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed at least 60,430 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.The Palestine Red Crescent Society said one of its staff members was killed in an Israeli attack on its Khan Yunis headquarters, in southern Gaza.Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was “not aware of a strike” in that area.Media restrictions and difficulties accessing many areas mean AFP cannot independently verify tolls and details provided by various parties.An AFP journalist aboard a French army plane airdropping aid on Saturday saw widespread destruction at the Gaza City port and elsewhere in the territory’s north, with entire neighbourhoods levelled.- ‘Provocation’ -In Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on Sunday, firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said in a filmed statement that “the response to Hamas’s horror videos” should include Gaza’s occupation and plans for the “voluntary emigration” of its people.The video was taken at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third-holiest site, which is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, though they are barred from praying there under a long-standing convention.Jordan, which acts as the site’s custodian, condemned the minister’s latest visit there as “an unacceptable provocation”, while Hamas called it “a deepening of the ongoing aggression against our Palestinian people”.Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that “Israel’s policy of maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount has not changed and will not change”.

The trickle of food aid Israel allows to enter Gaza after nearly 22 months of war is seized by Palestinians risking their lives under fire, looted by gangs or diverted in chaotic circumstances rather than reaching those most in need, UN agencies, aid groups and analysts say.After images of malnourished children stoked an international outcry, aid has started to be delivered to the territory once more but on a scale deemed woefully insufficient by international organisations.Every day, AFP correspondents on the ground see desperate crowds rushing towards food convoys or the sites of aid drops by Arab and European air forces.On Thursday, in Al-Zawayda in central Gaza, emaciated Palestinians rushed to pallets parachuted from a plane, jostling and tearing packages from each other in a cloud of dust.”Hunger has driven people to turn on each other. People are fighting each other with knives,” Amir Zaqot, who came seeking aid, told AFP.To avoid disturbances, World Food Programme (WFP) drivers have been instructed to stop before their intended destination and let people help themselves. But to no avail.”A truck wheel almost crushed my head, and I was injured retrieving the bag,” sighed a man, carrying a bag of flour on his head, in the Zikim area, in the northern Gaza Strip.- ‘Truly tragic’ -Mohammad Abu Taha went at dawn to a distribution site near Rafah in the south to join the queue and reserve his spot. He said there were already “thousands waiting, all hungry, for a bag of flour or a little rice and lentils.””Suddenly, we heard gunshots….. There was no way to escape. People started running, pushing and shoving each other, children, women, the elderly,” said the 42-year-old. “The scene was truly tragic: blood everywhere, wounded, dead.”Nearly 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip while waiting for aid since May 27, the majority by the Israeli army, the United Nations said on Friday. The Israeli army denies any targeting, insisting it only fires “warning shots” when people approach too close to its positions.International organisations have for months condemned the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities on aid distribution in Gaza, including refusing to issue border crossing permits, slow customs clearance, limited access points, and imposing dangerous routes.On Tuesday, in Zikim, the Israeli army “changed loading plans for WFP, mixing cargo unexpectedly. The convoy was forced to leave early, without proper security,” said a senior UN official who spoke on condition of anonymity.In the south of Gaza, at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, “there are two possible routes to reach our warehouses (in central Gaza),” said an NGO official, who also preferred to remain anonymous. “One is fairly safe, the other is regularly the scene of fighting and looting, and that’s the one we’re forced to take.”- ‘Darwinian experiment’ -Some of the aid is looted by gangs — who often directly attack warehouses — and diverted to traders who resell it at exorbitant prices, according to several humanitarian sources and experts.”It becomes this sort of Darwinian social experiment of the survival of the fittest,” said Muhammad Shehada, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).”People who are the most starved in the world and do not have the energy must run and chase after a truck and wait for hours and hours in the sun and try to muscle people and compete for a bag of flour,” he said.Jean Guy Vataux, emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Gaza, added: “We’re in an ultra-capitalist system, where traders and corrupt gangs send kids to risk life and limb at distribution points or during looting. It’s become a new profession.”This food is then resold to “those who can still afford it” in the markets of Gaza City, where the price of a 25-kilogramme bag of flour can exceed $400, he added.– ‘Never found proof’ -Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of looting aid supplied by the UN, which has been delivering the bulk of aid since the start of the war triggered by the militant group’s October 2023 attack.The Israeli authorities have used this accusation to justify the total blockade they imposed on Gaza between March and May, and the subsequent establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a private organisation supported by Israel and the United States which has become the main aid distributor, sidelining UN agencies.However, for more than two million inhabitants of Gaza the GHF has just four distribution points, which the UN describes as a “death trap”.”Hamas… has been stealing aid from the Gaza population many times by shooting Palestinians,” said the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.But according to senior Israeli military officials quoted by the New York Times on July 26, Israel “never found proof” that the group had “systematically stolen aid” from the UN.Weakened by the war with Israel which has seen most of its senior leadership killed, Hamas today is made up of “basically decentralised autonomous cells” said Shehada.He said while Hamas militants still hunker down in each Gaza neighbourhood in tunnels or destroyed buildings, they are not visible on the ground “because Israel has been systematically going after them”. Aid workers told AFP that during the ceasefire that preceded the March blockade, the Gaza police — which includes many Hamas members — helped secure humanitarian convoys, but that the current power vacuum was fostering insecurity and looting.”UN agencies and humanitarian organisations have repeatedly called on Israeli authorities to facilitate and protect aid convoys and storage sites in our warehouses across the Gaza Strip,” said Bushra Khalidi, policy lead at Oxfam.”These calls have largely been ignored,” she added.- ‘All kinds of criminal activities’ -The Israeli army is also accused of having equipped Palestinian criminal networks in its fight against Hamas and of allowing them to plunder aid.”The real theft of aid since the beginning of the war has been carried out by criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces, and they were allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point into Gaza,” Jonathan Whittall, Palestinian territories chief of the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), told reporters in May.According to Israeli and Palestinian media reports, an armed group called the Popular Forces, made up of members of a Bedouin tribe led by Yasser Abu Shabab, is operating in the southern region under Israeli control.The ECFR describes Abu Shabab as leading a “criminal gang operating in the Rafah area that is widely accused of looting aid trucks”.The Israeli authorities themselves acknowledged in June that they had armed Palestinian gangs opposed to Hamas, without directly naming the one led by Abu Shabab.Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University, said many of the gang’s members were implicated in “all kinds of criminal activities, drug smuggling, and things like that”.”None of this can happen in Gaza without the approval, at least tacit, of the Israeli army,” said a humanitarian worker in Gaza, asking not to be named.