January 8, 2009, Ramallah, Occupied Palestinian Territories: The Decmocracy and Workers’ Rights Center (DWRC), an Advocacy Project partner based in Ramallah, has been issuing daily reports on the deepening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Day after day, the situation of the civilian population worsens, as reported by both UN-OCHA in its January 7 Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report, and countless testimonies from the population on the ground.

The DWRC, which has a branch in Gaza, reports that nearly the entire population is cut off from electricity and about 70 percent of the people have no access to water. The death toll has now exceeded 700, while Gaza Strip hospitals continue to struggle to attend to the thousands of injured.

In the southwest of Gaza city, the DWRC Gaza branch coordinator and families that took refuge with him since the start of the war had to move out of his apartment because they had run out of water and because their area had become totally insecure. Five families took refuge in his brothers’ two-room accounting office in order to survive on the little bit of water left in the tanks there, but they have no clean drinking water.

His brother’s wife, who gave birth by Caesarian section two days before the Israeli military operation started, has no water to clean her wound. Furthermore, even if powder milk is available for infants, there is no water to mix it with.

Food is also scarce: “To get bread, there are lines of 300 people at each bakery still operational and you cannot buy for more than 5 NIS of bread (around 10 pieces of small pita bread). There is no meat. We eat only once a day,” DWRC’s Gaza coordinator said.

Similar stories have been told over and over again by other DWRC colleagues, friends and family, with whom the organization maintains daily contact when phone lines are operational.

All Gaza updates can be found on their website.

The DWRC reiterates its appeal to civil society and trade unions worldwide to continue their protests in solidarity with the people of Gaza, and call on their governments to demand an end to the Israeli military operation and allow critical humanitarian aid into Gaza without delay.