United Nation: The Executive Director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell, raised a dire alarm on Wednesday, warning that the absence of safe drinking water in Gaza could result in a tragic loss of "many more children" to disease. Russell emphasized that access to sufficient clean water is a matter of life and death for children in Gaza, who are facing a severe scarcity.

"Children and their families are having to use water from unsafe sources that are highly salinated or polluted. Without safe water, many more children will die from deprivation and disease in the coming days," said Russell. The humanitarian alert follows over 10 weeks of near-constant bombardment in Gaza, severely impacting the enclave's water production, treatment, and distribution networks.

More than 1.4 million displaced Gazans, seeking shelter from the bombing, have sought refuge in or near facilities run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. However, UNICEF highlighted that recently displaced children in southern Rafah governorate have access to only 1.5 to two liters of water per day, and water services are "at the point of collapse."

Despite the lack of drinking water being alarming, UNICEF stressed that "hundreds of thousands" of displaced people, including half of them children, remain "in desperate need" of food, shelter, medicines, and protection. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that at least 50 percent of facilities providing basic water and sanitation services have been damaged or destroyed in Gaza.

Since the crisis began, UNICEF and its partners have provided fuel for wells, desalination plants, water trucking, waste and sewage management, along with bottled water and water containers for over 1.3 million people. However, access restrictions are preventing critical progress, including the entry of generators and plastic pipes to fix broken plumbing.

"Constant bombing, restrictions on materials and fuel are preventing critical progress," emphasized UNICEF's Russell in a tweet.