Palestinian Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Abdullah M. Abu Shawesh.
By ESTHER ALEXANDER, Abuja –
The Palestinian authority has issued a urgent appeal to the international community to intervene and pressure Israel to halt its systematic water deprivation policy, which is exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
A statement issued on Thursday by the Palestine Embassy in Nigeria, condemned Israel’s deliberate destruction of water infrastructure, including the demolition of over 700 wells and water desalination plants since October 2023, which has resulted in a devastating 97% decrease in the per capita share of water in Gaza.
The embassy maintained that Israeli regime’s policy of water deprivation is a clear violation of international law and amounts to a genocidal attack on the Palestinian people.
It said: “A report issued by B’tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, emphasized that the Israelis including the settler consume 247 liters of water per day compared to 82.4 liters per day for the Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank. Meanwhile the average daily consumption of water of the Palestinian communities that are not connected to the water grid is 26 liters per person. 92% of the Palestinian on the Occupied West Bank store water in tanks to counter the chronic water shortage.
“Citing the Euro-Med Monitor, in addition to imposing famine, Israel is deliberately reducing the amount of water available to residents of the Gaza Strip — especially potable water sources —and destroyed of over 700 wells and water desalination plants since the start of the ongoing genocide intentionally targeting the over 2.3 million people who live there as part of its ongoing genocide, since last October.
“Estimates show that since October 2023, the per capita share of water in the Gaza Strip has decreased by 97% due to the extensive destruction of water infrastructure by Israel.
“Today, the lack of drinking water in the Gaza Strip has become a matter of life and death, with residents currently being forced to drink unclean and contaminated well water.
The embassy, therefore, urged the international community to take immediate action to hold Israel accountable for its actions and ensure the protection of Palestinian human rights, including the right to access clean water.
“This is the appropriate time for the international community to use its diplomatic, economic, legal and political influence to put real pressure on Israel, the occupying Power, to end its continued disregard for international law, and for Western countries, especially, to exercise the law enforcement rule, they usually do over the countries of the South”, it said.
