Press Release: Water for Gaza: European Commission brings further relief under the Temporary International Mechanism

The European Commission is taking further action under the Temporary International Mechanism (TIM) to alleviate the conditions in Gaza. In the coming days, deliveries of fuel will be made to water pumping stations and water treatment plants, to power emergency generators. These plants, essential to public health and hygiene, have been relying on generators for much of each day, since the destruction by the Israeli Defence Force of the 6 transformers of the Gaza Power Plant two weeks ago. The Commission’s distribution plan will cover 109 water supply stations and 27 waste water plants located in the Gaza strip. This new initiative is in addition to action already taken to provide fuel for hospitals in Gaza. Through the TIM the Commission has already distributed over 120,000 liters of fuel to power the generators of eight public hospitals. The Commission is enlarging the fuel distribution plan to cover 25 health care centres that have generators. The Commission has allocated €105 million to the TIM. Taken together with new allocations of humanitarian and food aid announced in recent days, this brings the total made available from the Community Budget so far this year to the Palestinians to €329 million, considerably above the average annual provision made by the Commission.