Delivering desperately needed water to families in the besieged Gaza Strip has become a life-threatening mission, with Israeli attacks damaging key water infrastructure and forcing aid workers onto dangerous routes where two UNICEF truck drivers were killed earlier this year.
The UNICEF truck drivers were killed in April as they attempted to deliver water to the Mansoura water filling station in northern Gaza. The deliveries are necessary because pipelines that could safely be used to transport the water have been destroyed by Israel.
The Israeli attacks threaten the survival of families.
"On the ground, the situation is pretty horrific,” Jonathan Veitch, head of UNICEF for the Palestinian territories, told the Canadian Press during a recent interview in Ottawa while he was visiting Canada.
"All we’re asking for is the basic humanitarian needs to be met through a recovery process and fixing some of these systems,” he said.
Veitch said the destruction of the water pipes means U.N. personnel must deliver the water, which is expensive in terms of human life and money.
"We carry on doing the water trucking over and over again each day, which is incredibly expensive and costs Canadian taxpayers and others money,” he said. "We can fix this relatively straightforwardly by bringing in the equipment that is required to fix those pipes, to reduce the leaks in them, and to restart some of the pumping stations that have broken or were destroyed during the war.”
The Israeli military said it is making every effort to support Palestinians while blocking Hamas from stealing aid.
