Gaza’s water crisis - in pictures

The house in Al Mansara rarely receives piped water, according to Fayez Harazin, 59, head of one of the five families living there after their own homes were bombed and destroyed last summer.

A member of the Harazin family on the roof as water is pumped. The water, delivered from private desalination plants, costs Mr Harazin 15 shekels (Dh14) for each tank and his family use it to bathe, cook and drink.

A Palestinian woman and child on the Wadi Gaza bridge. The lack of safe drinking water in Gaza is compounded by a problem that becomes clear at the Wadi Gaza bridge, on the coastal road south of Gaza City, where a large concrete pipe spews brown liquid into the Mediterranean and an overpowering smell fills the air.

Palestinian boys play on a sewage pipe above sewage water that runs like a river below the the Wadi Gaza bridge. According to the UN, Gaza is facing a water and sanitation crisis with 96 per cent of the fresh water available from the underground aquifer unsafe for human consumption.

Palestinian manager of the USAID water distribution centre Baha Al Khouri, 23, says the water storage bladder is filled daily from a private vendor and is often empty by the end of the day. Up to 400 people from the southern Shujaieh area come to get water each day.

A herd of camels are seen by the sewage water that runs freely in Wadi Gaza south of Gaza City on April 19, 2015.

Although 72 per cent of Gazan homes are connected to a sewage network, the territory’s waste treatment plants are either not operational or are hampered by the lack of power.

The 50-day bombardment of Gaza by Israel took a huge toll on Palestinians and their access to basic amenities such as clean water. All photos by Heidi Levine for The National