The United Nations official overseeing water and sanitation within the Gaza Strip is praising Canada’s support for Palestinians but warns that a few of its aid money is being squandered by Israel’s attacks on water facilities and restrictions on aid groups.
Jonathan Veitch, the top of UNICEF for the Palestinian territories, said the Israeli military’s destruction of facilities just like the Canada Well and attacks on those paid to deliver water are making survival harder for desperate families now living in rat-infested tents.
“On the bottom, the situation is pretty horrific,” Veitch told The Canadian Press in an exclusive interview during his visit to Ottawa earlier this month.
“All we’re asking for is the fundamental humanitarian must be met through a recovery process and fixing a few of these systems.”
Veitch spent five days on a rare visit to the Gaza Strip in early July just before coming to Ottawa.
The US’ war on Iran and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon have diverted media attention away from the Gaza Strip. UNICEF says no less than 200 children have been killed by hostilities since a ceasefire took effect last October.
“The conditions on the bottom haven’t improved markedly. The ceasefire was agreed last October and since then, mainly, a toddler a day is killed,” he said.
Gaza was already a crowded territory before the war began in 2023. A lot of the Palestinians living there are deemed to be refugees by the UN.
A brutal Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 prompted Israel to bombard the territory. Since then, tens of hundreds of individuals have died within the Gaza Strip and many of the enclave’s buildings have been badly damaged.
The Israeli army has expanded its control of the world for the reason that ceasefire began, Veitch said, and a couple of.1 million Gazans have been confined to simply 30 per cent of the territory.
Families reside in makeshift tents surrounded by mounds of waste, Veitch said. Nighttime temperatures in Gaza have seldom dropped below 25 C in recent weeks.
“We’ve literally had tens of millions and tens of millions of rats which were breeding and so they come into the tents at night,” he said.
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“I’ve seen a few of those children going to hospital with the bite of the rat on their face. And due to the solid waste, we even have huge problems with insects and skin infections.”
Medical officials in Gaza often can’t access antibiotics and reagents needed for medical testing, Veitch said. Israel allows tarps, plastic sheets and supplies into Gaza to maintain people alive, but bans generators, cement and other items that transcend basic survival needs, he said.
He said Israel requires “enormous detail” for imports of any materials for restoring water infrastructure, including exact specifications and images.
It’s a part of the Israeli military’s system for keeping out items it argues could possibly be used for each civilian and military ends — “dual-use” items.
Israel says it’s stopping Hamas from constructing weapons or diverting supplies into the black market to finance its attacks. But aid groups say Israel’s restrictions are far too broad.
Israel has cited similar concerns when calling on international aid organizations to supply extensive personal data and sensitive details about their staff and contractors. It has barred aid groups which have did not comply with its reporting standards.
Because the UN’s child-protection agency, UNICEF focuses on providing education, health care and nutrition services.
But Veitch said his agency has needed to tackle water, sanitation and hygiene services for all of Gaza as what the UN calls the “provider of last resort” — because Israel has barred aid groups for not complying with its latest standards.
He said the Mekorot water pipeline, a lifeline for the territory, is leaking badly and officials can’t get supplies to repair it. Desalination plants treat water to the purpose where could be used for cleansing but not for drinking, he said.
Israel began allowing shipments of plastic water pipes to Gaza only recently, he added.
In April, Israeli troops shot dead two drivers working for UNICEF who were filling up water tanks in Gaza. Now, Veitch said, UNICEF water trucks travelling in Gaza have to be driven by UNICEF staff and be accompanied by armoured vehicles and security officers.
“We supply on doing the water trucking over and another time every day, which is incredibly expensive and costs Canadian taxpayers and others money,” he said.
“We will fix this relatively straightforwardly by bringing within the equipment that’s required to repair those pipes, to scale back the leaks in them, and to restart a number of the pumping stations which have broken or were destroyed through the war.”
The office of Randeep Sarai, Canada’s secretary of state for international development, has been asked for comment.
In July 2024, Israeli soldiers filmed themselves blowing up a water facility within the Tel al-Sultan district of Rafah within the southern Gaza Strip. The power is generally known as the Canada Well because it sits in an area where Canadian foreign aid in Gaza had been focused for many years.
In an announcement last week, the Israeli Defense Forces said it remains to be assessing what happened.
“The IDF views with severity any conduct that will involve damage to civilian infrastructure in violation of international law and IDF directives,” the military’s media team wrote to The Canadian Press.
The Israeli military agency that oversees humanitarian work in Gaza, COGAT, has acknowledged the spread of disease and water shortages in Gaza. It insists that it’s making every effort to supply support while blocking Hamas from stealing aid or using it to construct weapons.
“Food, medical, and (water, sanitation and hygiene) supplies are entering the Gaza Strip every day, including specific dual-use items that undergo a rigorous security examination mechanism,” the agency wrote on X, where it publishes official updates.
“These shipments occur in full collaboration with the international community to ensure that this humanitarian aid reaches civilians and never Hamas.”
COGAT added that it’s crafting a response to a spike in chickenpox cases in Gaza.
Veitch praised Canada for continuing to support UNICEF and UN agencies through funding that isn’t pegged to specific projects, in order that aid staff can put dollars toward essentially the most critical needs on the bottom.
“Canada has been definitely punching above its weight by way of national humanitarian assistance towards Gaza and in addition the West Bank,” he said.
He said kids are being put into makeshift classrooms due to donations from Canada’s private sector and small-scale monthly contributions from its residents.
“Giving just a little bit, week in week out, has made an enormous difference to assist those children,” he said.
He said aid and advocacy from countries like Canada ended a famine in Gaza by boosting dietary supplies and cutting acute malnutrition amongst young children.
Gaza has one among the youngest populations on earth — half of the enclave’s residents are children — and the war has left many orphans and amputees.
“Every child is traumatized. They’re in a really bad situation,” Veitch said, adding that peace shall be harder to realize if hundreds of individuals grow up with no opportunities or education.
“We’ll have a complete lost generation.”