Nuha A. Eleyan
Gaza Strip citizens suffer from a suffocating water crisis that deprives them of clean drinking water and causes a shortage in the amount of water that reaches them and which they need in their daily life. This is such a complex problem, mainly caused by the Israeli occupation and its restrictive siege imposed on the Gaza Strip for 15 years.

Aquifer Pollution
International reports mentioned that 95% of the Gaza Strip citizens are deprived of usable water, for many reasons the most prominent of which is the infiltration of wastewater into the underground water which is considered as the main source of water for the citizens. This was confirmed by Eng. Mazen Al-Banna, the Director-General of Planning at the Water Quality Authority, as he said: “a lot of areas in the Gaza Strip are not connected with sewage services and still relying on wastewater wells for disposal, which led to the infiltration of wastewater into the underground water tanks and to cause its pollution."

He added: “the eastern area of Khan Yunis -southern Gaza Strip- is the most affected from the infiltration, as most of the soil in that area is wet due to its frequent saturation with the sewage water. What proves this is the high nitrate compound in the underground water to 600 milligrams per liter as it is supposed not to exceed 50 milligrams, representing an increase of 14 times to the permissible amount. Thus, 97% of our underground water is not compatible with the quality of water according to the standards of the World Health Organization.”

Excessive Use
Citizens of the Gaza Strip depend on the underground tank with a 90% percentage to meet their daily needs of water, and the rest is purchased from Palestinian water stolen by the occupation. This led to a sharp decline in the underground tank level to reach in some areas to 20 meters under the sea, which is a percentage that warns of a catastrophe for the tank if the excessive use of it continues. 200 million cubic liters are being extracted yearly, while its yearly capacity does not exceed 60 million cubic liters, causing the infiltration of the seawater into it, and the increase of its salinity and pollution especially with the increasing of the Gaza Strip population significantly, and the increasing need of water.

Rain Water
Eng. Mazen Al-Banna says that rainwater was previously feeding the underground tank with 120 million cubic liters yearly, to compensate for the shortage happened along the year. However, the percentage declined to 30 million cubic liters, with a 25% percentage, and he added: “the Israeli occupation prevents the reach of rainwater to the Gaza Strip through making water barriers at its borders. In addition, there are water drainages in the civil and urban areas, whose roads are paved and prevent rain from reaching the underground.”

Water Deficit
The daily share for a citizen from water is 150 cubic liters, but what receives is 80 cubic liters only according to the municipal readings. Eng. Mazen Al-Banna attributed this to the existence of infiltration in the network’s supply, which is difficult for the municipality to repair due to the lack of financial resources and the unavailability of the materials needed for repairs due to the Israeli occupation's prevention of dozens of items from entering the Gaza Strip.

The water deficit in the Gaza Strip is estimated at nearly 140 million cubic liters yearly, to fulfill the daily home use or agricultural only. As for the drinking water, citizens are forced to purchase it from sub-stations for desalination, which forms an economic load on them in light of the deteriorating economic conditions.

Solutions
Eng. Al-Banna stressed the need to provide alternatives to underground water so that the tank can recover and compensate for its severe shortage in several ways. The first of which is: the utilization of rainwater by allocating lands for collection and filtering it to the tank. He also called for the implementation of agricultural projects to provide grazing water away from the use of underground water, by recycling the wastewater, which has already started, as 3 desalination stations were established to treat wastewater two years ago after the project stopped for 5 years due to the stubbornness of the Israeli occupation to import the materials needed for its construction.

Eng. Mazen said that the desalination stations reach a daily capacity of 55 million cups and they are desalinated and distributed to houses and agricultural lands. Yet, they are unable to keep up with the increasing needs of citizens with the increase in population, and need to develop and expand it. What makes the crisis worse is the occupation prevention of importing chlorine that the stations use in sterilizing the water, from time to time.

Consequently, the crisis will remain as it is, and will get worse to affect all aspects of life, because of the occupation's deliberation of exacerbating this crisis so that the Gaza Strip remains in a hard-constant status.