UNICEF says Israel blocks Gaza basin repairs, warns of flood risk

GENEVA, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The UN children's agency said Israel had rejected the importation of equipment needed to repair a water basin in Gaza, and warned that the facility could overflow and endanger nearby residents through flooding and disease.

Local authorities say Israel destroyed water infrastructure and vehicles used to pump water during its war against Hamas, which had displaced most of the territory's more than 2 million residents and left much of Gaza in ruins. Most of the population now lives in tent camps.

One damaged facility is the ⁠Sheikh Radwan stormwater basin in Gaza City, which is now contaminated with sewage and at risk of overflowing after heavy rainfall, according to UNICEF's James Elder.

He told reporters the agency had been working with Israeli authorities and US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace for a year on a $3 million plan to repair it, but that COGAT, the Israeli military agency overseeing humanitarian affairs in Gaza, had rejected the project in the past few days.

"Toxic sewage could flow into the streets and tents of Gaza City, forcing children and families from their makeshift homes once more, and grossly increasing the threat of disease. So we're a bit baffled," he told a press briefing in Geneva.

"Let's do the ⁠rehabilitation before this becomes another entirely preventable killer of girls and boys in Gaza," he said.

COGAT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Elder said it had cited security grounds, in an apparent reference to strict Israeli rules regulating the entry of items that could be used for either civilian or military purposes by Hamas.

This week, heavy rain has already flooded tens of ⁠thousands of tents housing displaced Palestinians crammed into encampments across the Gaza Strip.

Four people, including three small children, were killed when a sand embankment collapsed on their tents in an incident that highlighted the risks ahead of the rainy winter season.

A US-brokered ceasefire last year ⁠called for the eventual reconstruction of Gaza, but little progress has been made as negotiators have failed to agree on terms for Hamas to disarm or for Israel to withdraw its troops.

World Health Organization spokesperson Christian Lindmeier ⁠said at the same briefing there were significant communicable disease risks in Gaza due to flooding, poor sanitation and insufficient health and water services.

Nearly 1 million displaced people across Gaza now faced medium or high flood risk, he said.

Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Nidal Al Mughrabi in Cairo; Editing by Alex Richardson

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Emma Farge

Thomson Reuters

Emma Farge reports on the U.N. beat and Swiss news from Geneva since 2019. She has produced a string of exclusives on diplomacy, the environment and global trade and covered Switzerland's first war crimes trial. Her Reuters career started in 2009 covering oil swaps from London and she has since written about the West African Ebola outbreak, embedded with U.N. troops in north Mali and was the first reporter to enter deposed Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh's estate. She co-authored a winning story for the Elizabeth Neuffer Memorial Prize on Russia's diplomatic isolation in 2022 and was also part of a team of journalists nominated in 2012 as Pulitzer finalists in the international reporting category for coverage of the Libyan revolution. She holds a BA from Oxford University (First) and an MSc from the LSE in International Relations. She is currently on the board of the press association for UN correspondents in Geneva (ACANU).