GAZA (Dispatches) – Municipal 
authorities in Gaza warned on Wednesday of health and environmental disasters due to the Zionist regime’s ongoing cut of electricity and water supplies to the enclave. The Union of Gaza Municipalities said that the power cut by the occupying regime has caused the main water desalination plant in the territory to shut down.
“These punitive policies against Palestinians in Gaza are a violation of international law and exacerbate the suffering of the population, who are facing a major humanitarian crisis,” added the union.
The Zionist regime cut off the electricity supply to Gaza on Sunday, in the latest move to tighten a stifling blockade on the Palestinian enclave despite a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement being in force. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese denounced the Israeli move as a “genocide alert”, saying that without electricity, there is no clean water.
It followed another Israeli decision to stop humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, prompting warnings from local and human rights groups of a return to widespread hunger for the Palestinian population.
The union appealed to the international community and humanitarian organizations to “intervene immediately to secure essential supplies and guarantee the entry of essential materials… to avoid further health and environmental disasters.”
On Tuesday, Mohammad Thabet, a spokesman of the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company, said that Israel had provided the enclave with only five megawatts of electricity since last November before its decision to cut off power to the enclave.
More than 48,500 people have been killed, mostly women and children, in a brutal Israeli war on Gaza since October 2023. The onslaught was paused under the ceasefire and prisoner swap deal, which took effect in January.
On Tuesday, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that the severe water shortage in the Gaza Strip has reached critical levels, noting that nine out of ten people cannot access clean drinking water.
Rosalia Bollen, a UNICEF official in Gaza, said 600,000 people who had regained access to drinking water in November 2024 are once again cut off.
“It’s really vital for thousands of families and children to restore this connection,” she said.
UN agencies estimate that 1.8 million people; over half of them children, urgently need water, sanitation and hygiene assistance.
The UN says the situation has deteriorated further following the Zionist regime’s decision on Sunday to cut power to the enclave, disrupting vital desalination operations.