Water shortage at Gaza UN shelters, fears grow amid Israeli offensive


KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Water has run out at U.N. shelters across Gaza as thousands packed into the courtyard of the besieged territory’s largest hospital as a refuge of last resort from a looming Israeli ground offensive and overwhelmed doctors struggled to care for patients they fear will die once generators run out of fuel. Palestinian civilians across Gaza, already battered by years of conflict, were struggling for survival Sunday in the face of an unprecedented Israeli operation against the territory following a Hamas militant attack on Oct. 7 that killed 1,300 Israelis, most of them civilians. Israel has cut off the flow of food, medicine, water and electricity to Gaza, pounded neighborhoods with airstrikes and told the estimated 1 million residents of the north to flee south ahead of Israel’s planned attack. The Gaza Health Ministry said more than 2,300 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting erupted last weekend. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN on Sunday that Israeli officials told him they had turned the water back on in southern Gaza. But the spokesman for Israel’s energy and water ministry, Adir Dahan, said it was only flowing at a single location in southern Gaza. Aid workers in Gaza said they had not yet seen evidence the water was back and a Gaza government spokesperson said it was not flowing. Throughout the day, Gazans lined up for hours outside bakeries and jostled to buy bread, as fears of food shortages loomed. Umm Abdullah Abu Rizq had come at 7 a.m. hoping to buy food to feed her family and the others sheltering in her home. “Is this enough for seven families and their children?” she asked, holding a small plastic bag with bread. She was not able to buy more. In Khan Younis, residents rushed to mosques where clean water supplies were still available, for now. Eyad Aqel, a resident, said widespread electricity outages meant water could not be pumped up to replenish his tank. He held a small plastic water container he said would be his family’s supply for washing and cooking. Relief groups called for the protection of the over 2 million civilians in Gaza urging an emergency corridor be established for the transfer of humanitarian aid. There was no indication that such a corridor will be opened anytime soon, said Ahmed al-Mandhari, the regional director of the World Health Organization. The agency

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