Virginia Mielgo: "I never imagined I would witness a genocide with my own eyes."

BarcelonaEnvironmental scientist and aid worker Virginia Mielgo has just returned from Gaza. As a water and sanitation specialist, she has been coordinating Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)'s water, food, and hygiene program, which supports hospitals and health centers in the Strip. After an initial six-week stay in February, she spent another six weeks this summer in the Al Mawasi humanitarian zone and in northern Gaza City. She speaks to ARA from Vigo, her home.

How are you?

— Gaza is a rather extreme experience. As humanitarian workers, we are accustomed to working in places where violence against civilians exists, but in Gaza, the population is subjected to new levels of suffering. A very painful suffering to live with. No one imagines that in the 21st century, with the level of information we have, we would have to witness a genocide. Our teams see it every day, and there is no international response.

What do your colleagues from Gaza tell you?

— They tell me they're starving. Every day, there are colleagues working in hospitals who haven't eaten; they're operating and treating people with empty stomachs. The situation regarding access to food and water is truly critical. These are people who, even with a salary, are starving. The majority of the population has no income at all because they've lost their livelihoods.

You visited Gaza in February and returned this summer. What's changed?

— In February, the ceasefire was signed, and it was a moment when the Palestinian population could sleep without constantly hearing the sound of bombs, helicopters, drones… People saw some light at the end of the tunnel, although everyone was aware that the current generations would never be able to return to normal. In the second trip, the intention to make Gaza uninhabitable is even clearer: The systematic blockade of every life-sustaining supply in Gaza is evident.. It is not an access problem. The Resources are there, but there is a blockage.

He says that Gaza is a place where you cannot live.

— There isn't a single corner of Gaza spared the impact of war, genocide, hunger, and scarcity. Every building is destroyed or hit by shells. But in every corner, families are huddled in tents, makeshift shelters, or barracks. In every collapsed building, someone is using a piece of wall to take refuge from the sun or, in winter, from the cold. Another thing you see are the water distributions by truck. People have been queuing every day for two years to receive a minimum of water. They line up their containers to take them home, even if they have to walk a kilometer. Most are children and the elderly, and they spend hours under the sun because the service is not regular, and they don't see an end. There isn't a day when they say, "Today will be the last day I'll receive water from this truck." No. The next day it will be the same, and the next day too.

Your mission in Gaza is to ensure safe drinking water, especially in hospitals. Why is this so important?

— There is no potable surface water in Gaza. All available water is salty. So To be consumed, it must come from desalination plants, which operate with diesel generators, and this is the first limitation.MSF produces water and distributes it to hospitals and health centers, and directly to the population. The main limitation is supplies: they won't let in any spare parts. We're looking for ways to set up plants capable of producing drinking water, by taking a part from here and a generator from there. We have at least eight desalination plants waiting at the borders of the Gaza Strip for at least ten months, and we haven't been able to bring them in even during the ceasefire, when the blockade was supposed to have been lifted.

Lack of water encourages the spread of diseases.

— Limited access to water affects drinking water—causing, for example, diarrhea, one of the leading causes of death worldwide in children under five—and also hygiene. Almost the entire population of Gaza is concentrated in 17% of the area—because the remaining 83% is under forced evacuation orders—and the overcrowded conditions are terrible. These are areas with makeshift camps and no services, where access to water is so limited that skin and digestive diseases are common. But our centers are saturated with wounded from food distributions. Right now, the health system is overwhelmed by these types of wounded, who arrive from distribution centers orchestrated by Israel with the support of the United States.

In fact, last week it published a report on these sites, managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, describing the killings as "scenes of orchestrated massacres and dehumanization."

— Since they started We have seen the results of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's distributions on a daily basis.It's almost routine to count the wounded and dead arriving from these distribution centers. In the two primary care centers near two of the four GHF distribution centers, we have received 1,380 wounded people, 174 of whom were wounded by bullets, including infants. More than 70 are minors, because families send their most likely survivors—usually young boys—to reach them and participate in the pitched battle that ensues in these centers, which are specifically organized for this purpose. We have received 28 bodies in just seven weeks directly from these distribution centers.

You've worked in many other countries. What makes Gaza different?

— Gaza, unlike the other humanitarian crises I've experienced, is a genocide I never imagined I'd witness with my own eyes. It's a televised and intentional genocide. A plan in which an occupying power, Israel calculates exactly the amount of water, food and basic services to which the population can have access every day. This is unique in the world.

Netanyahu ordered the total occupation of Gaza on Friday.What could this mean for the civilian population?

— Today, there are 2.1 million people concentrated in 17% of the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu announces a further reduction in this zone free of evacuation orders. This can only mean more deaths, more suffering, more overcrowding, and more fighting over resources. Violence in the streets is increasing to unprecedented levels. There is so much hunger and lack of resources that even among themselves there are attacks. Note that we have a new category in health centers: "People beaten by others." These are people who arrive with injuries from being in avalanches or from being assaulted. The level of desperation is such that no one is safe anymore.