Rehabilitation services

Rehabilitation services in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are provided exclusively by the local NGOs.

Rehabilitation services are of two types:

• residential rehabilitation services, with a capacity of 122 beds in the West Bank;
• non-residential rehabilitation services, including outpatient clinics and outreach programmes.

Environmental health

• Water supply

Water supply in the West Bank and Gaza Strip derives from wells (66%) and springs (27%). The remainder comes from runoff, wadis and cisterns. Water quality in the West Bank is generally deemed to be good, while the quality of water in the Gaza Strip is poor.

The major problems associated with drinking-water can be summarized as follows:

• inadequacy of available water supplies to meet domestic requirements;
• absence of a rational basis for water pricing;
• unaccounted-for losses in distribution networks, estimated at around 40% of supply.

Table 11. Water consumption rates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip

Table 12. Piped water network in the West Bank and Gaza Strip

Source: PCBS: Demographic survey for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. March 1996.

• Sewage and solid waste

Only four towns in the West Bank have wastewater treatment systems: Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin and Nablus. None of the rural areas has any collection or treatment facilities. In the Gaza Strip, only the Jabalia refugee camp, part of the Beach refugee camp and part of the Rafah refugee camp have conventional piped sewage systems; 60% of Gaza City is served by a network.

• Air pollution

The amount of polluting gases emitted in the PSRA is insignificant compared with the amount discharged in Israel. Pollution is carried to the area by westerly winds. The air quality is generally assessed as good.