The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) urgently calls on the international community to intervene and ensure the people of Gaza have access to safe drinking water. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have deliberately escalated their policies to deprive Palestinians in Gaza of the minimum amount of water needed to survive by disabling supply lines, cutting off electricity, and preventing the entry of fuel necessary to operate the remaining desalination facilities—which are expected to completely shut down in the coming days.

PCHR warns of the catastrophic consequences of the collapse of water and sanitation services, particularly for children, women, and the elderly. Gaza is now facing a looming and life-threatening water crisis, which could lead to the outbreak of disease and deadly dehydration. This comes amid intensified Israeli military attacks on civilian infrastructure, the expansion of ground operations, the seizure of vast areas forcibly cleared of residents, and the continued closure of the border crossings for the second month, blocking humanitarian aid.

According to PCHR’s field documentation, on April 4, 2025, the IOF intentionally disabled the Mekorot water pipeline east of Gaza City, which supplied 70% of the area’s potable water—about 20,000 cubic meters daily. This occurred after Israeli tanks invaded the area, ordering immediate evacuations and occupying Al-Montar Hill east of Shuja’iyya. Since then, technical teams have been denied access to assess and repair the damage. Similarly, Israel has refused coordination for repairs on the Mekorot pipeline in central Gaza, which has been out of service since January 22, 2024. That pipeline had supplied 13,000 cubic meters daily—meeting the drinking water needs of nearly 300,000 residents.¹

In early March 2025, the IOF also severed an electricity line reconnected in November 2024, which powered the Deir al-Balah desalination plant. This has halted the plant’s capacity to produce 18,000 cubic meters of potable water per day, endangering the lives of 600,000 people in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis.²

PCHR’’s field researchers report that Gaza’s population is suffering extreme hardship in accessing drinking water. Residents are often forced to go days without water, and many have resorted to consuming contaminated groundwater—leading to the spread of waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, dysentery, and hepatitis A. Since the beginning of the assault, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has recorded approximately 1.7 million medical cases and over 30 deaths due to malnutrition and dehydration, the majority being children.

Since October 2023, Israel’s deliberate and systematic criminal actions have deprived Palestinians of access to the bare minimum of water. The IOF have destroyed approximately 90% of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure. Today, the average resident receives only around 5 liters of water per day. This is a direct, real-world translation of statements by Israeli government ministers openly calling for the extermination of Palestinians and the cutting off of electricity, water, fuel, and food—statements that have manifested into war crimes committed against civilians in Gaza.

Israeli forces cut off the electricity supply needed to operate water pumps and desalination plants, destroyed critical water and sanitation infrastructure, and restricted access to fuel essential for running generators amid the ongoing power blackout. They also targeted and killed technical crews attempting to repair damaged water lines, bombed central warehouses storing spare parts, equipment, and essential supplies for water production, and deliberately blew up water tanks in residential areas still under Israeli control.

Gaza municipalities have repeatedly warned that they can no longer provide safe drinking water due to the collapse of supply lines and the lack of fuel needed to operate generators that power water wells.

PCHR asserts that Israel’s systematic deprivation of water is a blatant violation of the three provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which call for the unrestricted and immediate provision of adequate food and water to Gaza’s population.

These actions also amount to war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes including starvation through the denial of water and destruction of essential infrastructure.

The denial of water and sanitation also constitutes a violation of the right to water under international human rights law. PCHR emphasizes that these policies aim to impose living conditions intended to destroy the population of Gaza. They have already resulted in mass killings and may lead to further deaths, constituting a crime against humanity—namely genocide.

These acts also fall under the crime of genocide due to the severe physical and mental harm inflicted on the population, as noted in the most recent UN Commission of Inquiry report, which found reasonable grounds to believe that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza over the past 17 months.³

In light of these grave violations, PCHR issues this urgent appeal to the international community and all people of conscience to uphold their moral and legal responsibilities. Immediate pressure must be placed on Israel to reopen border crossings, allow the entry of humanitarian aid—including fuel to power desalination plants—restore Mekorot water lines, and permit technical teams to access and repair damaged infrastructure, in order to save lives in Gaza.

PCHR further calls on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to follow up on existing arrest warrants and issue additional ones against those directly responsible for weaponizing water, including, but not limited to, current Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz.

Finally, PCHR urges the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation to investigate and expose these violations, and to declare Gaza an environmentally devastated zone due to the collapse of its water and sanitation systems.

1. Information obtained by the PCHR’s field researcher from the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility Authority, on April 5, 2025. ↩︎
2.  The same as previous reference ↩︎
3. International Inquiry Commission: “Israel’s systematic use of sexual and reproductive violence is more than humanity can bear,” Link:: https://news.un.org/ar/story/2025/03/1139826 ↩︎