Gaza is facing a man-made drought after its water system collapsed, the United Nations Children's Agency, UNICEF, said on June 20.
"Children will start dying of thirst... Only 40 percent of the water production plants are functional," UNICEF spokesman James Elder told reporters in Geneva.
"We are well below emergency standards in terms of drinking water for the people of Gaza," he added.
UNICEF also reported a 50 percent increase in children aged six months to five years hospitalized for malnutrition during April-May in Gaza, as well as half a million people suffering from hunger.
The agency said the aid distribution system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – supported by Israel and the United States – was “making the desperate situation even more dire.”
On June 20, at least 25 people waiting for aid trucks were killed by Israeli fire in Netzarim, according to health authorities in the Gaza Strip. The day before, at least 51 people were killed by Israeli strikes, including 12 who were trying to reach a center operated by the GHF in central Gaza.
In the Israeli strikes on Friday, another 12 people were killed during an airstrike that hit a family's home in Deir al-Balah, bringing the death toll that day to 37.
Elder, who recently spent time in Gaza, said there was plenty of testimony from women and children injured while trying to get food aid, including a young boy who was injured by a tank attack and later died from his injuries.
He said the lack of public clarity about when aid distribution centers - some of which are located in war zones - are open is causing many casualties.
“There have been cases where information was distributed that a place was open, but then it was communicated on social media that it was closed – but that information was distributed at a time when there was no internet in Gaza and people did not have access to it,” he said.
On Wednesday, the GHF said in a statement that it had distributed 3 million meals at the three relief centers it operates, without any incidents.
The war in Gaza began when militants led by Hamas — the Palestinian group designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union — attacked southern Israel, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. Israel says 58 hostages still remain in Gaza, although about 35 are believed to be dead.
Since then, Israel's war has killed more than 55,000 people in Gaza, many of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials.
The war has caused widespread devastation in the Palestinian territory, with the UN saying that almost the entire population of Gaza is on the brink of famine. (A2 Televizion)
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