Date: 14 August 2024

In a factsheet published on Sunday, 11 August 2024, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has emphasized that Israel uses water as a weapon of war in its ongoing genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip and inflicts conditions of life calculated to bring about the population’s physical destruction, including dehydration of people and depriving them of their right to access safe and clean water.  PCHR calls on the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation to declare the Gaza Strip a disaster-stricken area due to the Israeli grave violations against Palestinian civilians after causing the collapse of the safe water and sanitation systems and leading to the spread of waterborne diseases and epidemics.

In the factsheet, PCHR calls on the international community to allow the immediate entry of sufficient fuel required for the operation of remaining wells and water and sewage treatment plants in addition to repairing what can be repairable to save the Gaza Strip from a humanitarian disaster. Also, PCHR emphasizes the importance of allowing the entry of generators, submersible water pumps, spare parts and portable toilets and washrooms for the displaced people.

As outlined in the factsheet, in absence of impunity, the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) continue their notorious policy of violating civilians’ rights and depriving them of basic needs such as healthcare, food, and water. They use starvation, dehydration, and medicines as a bargaining chip to forcibly displace the Palestinians from large areas of the Gaza Strip by deliberately making it uninhabitable and their survival nearly impossible as the destruction of vital infrastructure fosters an environment that facilitates the swift transmission of diseases and epidemics.

IOF deliberately target and destroy Gaza’s healthcare system, rendering it impossible to treat diseases and thereby leaving those who survive face death from diseases and epidemics. This evidences Israel’s persistence to commit the crime of genocide against the Gaza Strip’s population, yet the international community fails to pressure the occupying power to comply with and implement the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings and UN Security Council resolutions calling for immediate ceasefire.  The international community cannot take urgent and effective action to provide essential services and humanitarian aid to address the dire living conditions of the Gaza Strip population.

Displaced people in Gaza live in devastating conditions amid limited access to safe water, sanitation facilities, and hygiene requirements, jeopardizing their health, education, and livelihoods. For 10 months, IOF have been deliberately targeting water sources to dehydrate civilians and thereby force them to evacuate their residential neighborhoods for military purposes.

This Factsheet outlines the water and sanitation crisis in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing Israeli genocidal campaign since 07 October 2023, and highlights the unprecedented damage inflicted that has created a major humanitarian disaster with long-term repercussions on the already strained healthcare and environmental systems resulting from a 17-year siege before the current aggression. The factsheet frames these deliberate Israeli violations against water and sanitation system within the broader framework of IOF’s persistence to commit genocide against the people of the Gaza Strip. IOF have used a policy of dehydration against them and deprived them of their right to have access to clean and safe water, in a flagrant violation of all international conventions and instruments.

At the end of the factsheet, PCHR has called on all international relief organizations to activate programs to reconstruct and repair temporary safe water networks and sanitation systems to cope with the current emergency situation.  PCHR has also demanded personal hygiene assistance to maintain the health and wellbeing of the displaced people, particularly women, children and elderlies.