97% of water in Gaza is polluted

Water experts agree that there is no safe drinking water in the Gaza Strip assuming that 97% of the water is contaminated. This causes concern about the spread of dangerous diseases.

This was done during a survey conducted by Palestinian press Wafa on the eve of World Water Day on 22 March every year.

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights reported that contamination increased due to seawater contamination of 73% in the Gaza Strip. The number of cases of diarrhea (80%) in children younger than 3 years indicates that fresh water is contaminated and drinking is dangerous

Rebhi Al-Sheikh, Deputy Director of the Palestinian Waterworks Bureau, said that water contamination in the Gaza Strip could cause diseases of the kidneys and urinary tracts, so that for children and pregnant women especially healthy due to rising salinity and nitrate levels I explained that the adverse effect on the main cause is the cause.

According to UNRWA version 178, "Gaza has been plagued by the water crisis since the blockade in Gaza in 2007." In 2016, Time magazine wrote an article about the water crisis called "Ticking Global Health Time Bomb". Gaza relies almost entirely on groundwater, because there is a continuous flow of water and a small amount of rain.

Groundwater is contaminated with nitrates from uncontrolled sewage and fertilizer used on the farm. It is estimated that it is not safe to drink 96% of the groundwater without treatment. Therefore, most Palestinians in Gaza have very limited drinking water.

In 2012, the United Nations warned that about 90,000 cubic meters of untreated or partially treated sewage is processed annually in the Mediterranean and adjacent environments (about 33 million cubic meters per year).

According to Munther Issa Shablaq, a director of a coastal city water supply company (CMWU), the proportion of nitrate in Gaza is 120 to 150 mg / L and the recommended ratio in the world should not exceed 50 mg / L. He emphasized that 97% of the water in the Gaza Strip is not suitable for home use.

He believes that he can be solved by stopping pumping water from the groundwater tank, providing other sources of water, implementing desalination projects, recycling wastewater, collecting rainwater and importing water There. During this process, groundwater tanks are repaired, rebuilt, and restored.

Second, Israel participates in PWA, including suggestions to establish respected research on the water crisis facing Gaza residents in 2011, to establish an effective water supply, distribution and use system in Gaza You can emphasize. Currently, Gaza's water supply is contaminated by more than 97%, endangering the health of all Gaza, threatening the failure of the Gaza part of the coastal aquifer. Israel can provide the necessary energy to support normal operation of all Gaza water and sewage treatment facilities.

Israel and the Palestinians share additional water resources and dangers. These include sources of desalination in the Mediterranean, primarily in Israel, but it is possible to save Gaza from a serious water shortage; the Dead Sea, the source of tourism, and the Red River Canal, if it is possible to desalinate from the Red Sea It may be done. Finally, the sewage must be converted from dangerous places to water, but still flows from the West Bank to Israel, contaminating its flow and causing serious environmental and sanitary hazards. Currently only 6 to 7% of Palestine wastewater is properly treated (Tal and Abed Rabbo, 2010). A serious shortage of sewers and water distribution pipes characteristic of Palestinian towns and Israeli settlements, and major danger to public health, groundwater and ecosystems

Water is contaminated if water contaminated water in the Palestinian Autonomous Region disturbs to some extent for various purposes such as drinking and irrigation. One cubic meter of sewage can contaminate clean water of 40 to 60 cubic meters. Causes of water pollution can be summarized as causes of infection, substances consumed by agricultural and animal residues, detergents, oxygen, petroleum and petroleum products, chemical substances, radioactive substances and heavy metals. The most important aspect of Palestinian water pollution is increased salinity and nitrate. The salt concentration in the Jordan River has reached 5,000 ppm, but in 1925 it did not exceed 600 ppm. Over the past two decades, Jericho's chloride concentration has increased from 24 mg / L to 1,365 mg / L. When Israel extracts underground water excessively, the salt concentration of the groundwater rises