UNITED NATIONS, New York – The UN Security Council will hold an emergency session on the hostages in Gaza, Israel’s ambassador said Sunday, as outrage built over their fate in the war-torn enclave, where experts say a famine is unfolding.
Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, posted the announcement on social media amid anger over videos showing two of the hostages held by Palestinian militant group Hamas emaciated.
Danon said that the Council “will convene this coming Tuesday for a special emergency session on the dire situation of the hostages in Gaza.”
The videos make references to the calamitous humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where UN-mandated experts have warned a “famine is unfolding.”
Israel has heavily restricted the entry of aid into Gaza, while UN agencies, humanitarian groups and analysts say that much of what Israel does allow in is looted or diverted in chaotic circumstances.
Many desperate Palestinians are left to risk their lives seeking what aid is distributed through controlled channels.
Earlier Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross to get food to the hostages.
In response, Hamas’s armed wing said that it would allow the agency access to the hostages but only if “humanitarian corridors” for food and aid were opened “across all areas of the Gaza Strip.”
The Al-Qassam Brigades said it did “not intentionally starve” the hostages, but they would not receive any special food privileges “amid the crime of starvation and siege” in Gaza. AFP
Over recent days, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have released three videos showing two hostages seized during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war.
The images of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David, both of whom appeared weak and malnourished, have fueled renewed calls in Israel for a truce and hostage release deal.
Meanwhile,
Atop air strikes, displacement and hunger, an unprecedented water crisis is unfolding across Gaza, heaping further misery on the Palestinian territory’s residents.
Gaza was already suffering a water crisis before nearly 22 months of war between Israel and Hamas damaged more than 80 percent of the territory’s water infrastructure.
“Sometimes, I feel like my body is drying from the inside, thirst is stealing all my energy and that of my children,” Um Nidal Abu Nahl, a mother of four living in Gaza City, told AFP.
Water trucks sometimes reach residents and NGOs install taps in camps for a lucky few, but it is far from sufficient.
Israel connected some water mains in north Gaza to the Israeli water company Mekorot, after cutting off supplies early in the war, but residents told AFP water still wasn’t flowing.
Local authorities said this was due to war damage to Gaza’s water distribution network, with many mains pipes destroyed.
Gaza City spokesman Assem al-Nabih told AFP that the municipality’s part of the network supplied by Mekorot had not functioned in nearly two weeks.
Wells that supplied some needs before the war have also been damaged, with some contaminated by sewage which goes untreated because of the conflict.
Many wells in Gaza are simply not accessible, because they are inside active combat zones, too close to Israeli military installations or in areas subject to evacuation orders.
At any rate, wells usually run on electric pumps and energy has been scarce since Israel turned off Gaza’s power as part of its war effort.
Generators could power the pumps, but hospitals are prioritized for the limited fuel deliveries.
Lastly, Gaza’s desalination plants are down, save for a single site reopened last week after Israel restored its electricity supply.
Nabih, from the Gaza City municipality, told AFP the infrastructure situation was bleak.
More than 75 percent of wells are out of service, 85 percent of public works equipment destroyed, 100,000 metres of water mains damaged and 200,000 metres of sewers unusable.
Pumping stations are down and 250,000 tons of rubbish is clogging the streets.
“Sewage floods the areas where people live due to the destruction of infrastructure,” says Mohammed Abu Sukhayla from the northern city of Jabalia.
In order to find water, hundreds of thousands of people are still trying to extract groundwater directly from wells.
But coastal Gaza’s aquifer is naturally brackish and far exceeds salinity standards for potable water.
In 2021, the UN children’s agency UNICEF warned that nearly 100 percent of Gaza’s groundwater was unfit for consumption.
With clean water nearly impossible to find, some Gazans falsely believe brackish water to be free of bacteria.
Aid workers in Gaza have had to warn repeatedly that even if residents can get used to the taste, their kidneys will inevitably suffer. AFP
