Gaza Water Access Below Six Litres Daily for 1.3 Million as COGAT Reports Ongoing Coordination

Ibtisam Al-Helou, a 40-year-old mother of three, leaves her tent on Gaza's seafront before dawn to search for fresh water. The Mediterranean sits steps away, yet she walks through shattered neighbourhoods to Al-Mina, Al-Amadi and Abu Mazen, where supplies sometimes appear. She reaches those points once every three days.

Midday temperatures climbed to 33 degrees Celsius. Al-Helou said water does not reach her area at all. When her children swim in the sea, she pays 50 shekels in treatment for each child to address itching, scabies and allergies.

More than half of Gaza's population, around 1.3 million people, receives less than six litres of drinking water a day, United Nations assessments show. Médecins Sans Frontières data put the average at 4.3 litres per person. Pre-war consumption stood at about 85 litres daily.

Alessandro Mrakic, head of the U.N. Development Programme in Gaza, said people continue queuing for water trucks that must navigate rubble to reach camps. Ozan Agbas, emergency operations manager with MSF Netherlands, said insufficient water directly harms health and hygiene.

MSF surveillance recorded acute respiratory infections in 46 percent of cases, skin diseases in 31 percent and acute watery diarrhoea in 21 percent. Health officials reported at least 5,000 chickenpox cases per week over the past month. Said El-Aklouk, a sanitation official at Gaza's Health Ministry, said Gaza operated around 320 water wells before the war but fewer than 100 function now.

Israeli attacks damaged or destroyed about 80 percent of the distribution network and most desalination capacity, he said. More than 300,000 cesspits discharge untreated wastewater into the coastal aquifer.