The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) warns of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe threatening the lives of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, who are enduring horrific conditions and thereby sentenced to a slow death through systematic thirst and deprivation of clean and safe water sources. Coinciding with the World Water Day, marking 22 March every year, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continues to use deliberate thirst and water cutoff as part of the crime of genocide, as water infrastructure, desalination plants, and wastewater treatment facilities have suffered massive destruction due to the Israeli military aggression ongoing on the Gaza Strip for 17 months. The IOF continues to impose a policy of collective punishment on civilians in the Gaza Strip by closing the crossings, blocking the entry of all types of humanitarian aid, and cutting off electricity and fuel supplies to water facilities. This escalation is part of the IOF’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians, aimed at turning the Gaza Strip into unlivable zone and uprooting the Palestinian existence in it.
Over months of the Israeli military aggression in Gaza Strip, the IOF has deliberately used water deprivation as a weapon of war and a policy of collective punishment. The IOF continues to employ these methods as part of the intentional infliction of living conditions calculated to bring about the destruction and extermination of the population. This constitutes a double crime, as it violates both the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the Rome Statute.1 These measures perpetuate in IOF’s systematic policies over decades, aimed at dominating Palestinian water resources, which has denied Palestinians control over their water resources and their right to an adequate standard of living.
According to PCHR’s field follow-ups, vast areas of the Gaza Strip have become devoid of water for personal and domestic use due to the IOF’s widespread destruction and systematic targeting of water infrastructure, which includes main desalination facilities, wastewater treatment plants, water tanks, water distribution networks, and sewage lines, as well as cutting off electricity and fuel supplies to these infrastructure and preventing the entry of maintenance equipment and spare parts needed for these facilities. This has significantly reduced the ability of these facilities to produce safe and potable water, forcing Palestinians to rely on scarce and contaminated water supplies. Moreover, more than 97% of the groundwater in the coastal aquifer is now unfit for consumption, as it has become salty and polluted after the IOF established dams and water traps along the borders to prevent the replenishment of Gaza’s groundwater reservoirs.
A joint press release2 by the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) and the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) indicates that the IOF has partially or completely destroyed more than 85% of water and sanitation service facilities, rendering them out of service. According to an initial assessment recently released by Oxfam3, the damaged facilities included 1675 kms of Gaza’s water and sanitation networks, 85 desalination plants, 246 water wells, and 40 large water tanks. This has led to a sharp decline in the population’s access to water, particularly with the power outages in the Gaza Strip and the blocking of fuel necessary to operate water facilities, desalination plants, and pumping stations.
As for the sewage system, the destruction of 73 sewage pumping stations and the severe damage to their networks have undermined years of international efforts aimed at halting the environmental degradation caused by the pumping of wastewater into the sea. With the destruction of these facilities, approximately 130,000 cubic meters4 of wastewater have flowed back into the sea, exacerbating the environmental disaster. Additionally, vast and densely populated areas are experiencing sewage flooding, creating fertile ground for infectious and serious diseases, especially with the collapse of the healthcare system and limited quantities of hygiene supplies in the Gaza Strip. In this context, the World Health Organization5 (WHO) states that the polio virus, which was first confirmed in central Gaza Strip on 16 August 2024, is found to remain in wastewater, according to samples collected in December 2024 and January 2025. This poses a significant risk to children and immunocompromised individuals in the Gaza Strip.
Currently, the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is worsening due to Israel’s resumption of its brutal and widescale aggression and its renunciation of the ceasefire agreement that came into effect in January 2025. On 02 March 2025, the Israeli Government has decided to close Gaza’s crossings and prevent the entry of all humanitarian aid, including food and fuel necessary for operating water desalination and wastewater treatment plants. On 09 March 2025, the IOF6 decided to cut off electricity supplies again through the F11 line to the desalination and wastewater treatment plants in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. These plants had previously been reconnected to electricity in mid-November 2024 under an agreement between the European Union (EU) and Israeli authorities to ensure their continued operation. This decision exacerbates the water crisis in central and southern Gaza Strip for the third consecutive week, particularly as it reduces the desalination plant’s ability to produce water by 80%, lowering its daily production of potable water to about 3,000 cubic meters out of its full capacity of 18,000 cubic meters. This means that more than 600,000 people in central and southern Gaza are deprived of clean water, a situation that threatens to further escalate their suffering, especially amidst the tight siege and the resumption of systematic bombing and killings against civilians.
Before October 2023, the daily per capita water supply was about 86 liters, but after the outbreak of the Israeli military aggression, it sharply decreased to 3-12 liters per person per day, which is still below the minimum internationally recommended standards. The WHO estimates that individuals need up to 100 liters daily to meet their basic needs. Recently, the water shortage in the Gaza Strip has reached a critical point, with only one in 10 people able to access clean and safe drinking water.7
The Union of Gaza Strip Municipalities8 recently stated that the Gaza Strip is facing a total humanitarian disaster, with local authorities declaring their inability to provide water and sanitation services to residents due to the recent Israeli actions that have rendered these facilities out of service. Gaza municipalities have also warned of a “major thirst crisis” if Israel carries out its threat to stop pumping ” Mekorot ” water to the Gaza Strip9 through three main pipelines in northern, central and southern Gaza Strip, which previously supplied approximately 53,000 cubic meters of water daily. This would deprive 70%10 of Gaza’s population of their water needs and exacerbate the health and environmental crisis, particularly amid the ongoing sewage flooding, the accumulation of thousands of tons of solid waste in residential areas and shelters, and the alarming spread of infectious diseases and epidemics, especially with the collapse of the healthcare system and the inability to provide effective medical services.
Regarding the water situation in the Gaza Strip, Eng. Monther Shublaq, Director of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), stated to PCHR’s researcher: “The Gaza Strip has suffered from a real environmental crisis and a scarcity of clean water sources throughout the 17 years of the Israeli siege. Our programs to improve the quality of water and sanitation services have been adversely affected. Despite this, in recent years, we managed to achieve accomplishments, including the establishment of a central seawater desalination plant in central Gaza Strip, three wastewater treatment plants, and the development of water distribution networks. However, these achievements were destroyed by the outbreak of the war 17 months ago. The scale of the destruction to water and sanitation facilities exceeded 80%, with losses estimated at approximately $680 million. These figures remain preliminary due to the ongoing war and the difficulty in accessing the affected facilities in the eastern, northern, and southern areas of the Gaza Strip.”
PCHR believes Israel’s deliberate targeting of water networks in the Gaza Strip, its destruction of clean water and sanitation facilities, its ongoing policy of depriving the population of water, its use of water as a weapon of war against civilians, and its denial of their right to access sufficient clean and safe water to be a persistent and open perpetration of the crime of genocide. This also constitutes a stark piece of evidence added to the compelling proofs regarding Israel’s efforts to destroy all the objects indispensable for Palestinians’ survival on their land, escalate ethnic cleansing against them, and ensure continued colonial control over their natural resources without deterrence or accountability. Moreover, the explicit international inaction fuels the ongoing crime against Palestinians and grants Israel impunity from prosecution before the international justice.
PCHR emphasizes that these practices, including the violation of the right to water and sanitation guaranteed under international human rights law and international humanitarian law that prohibit the targeting of civilian objects essential for the survival of populations, reflect the international failure to take a decisive action to end the impunity and the ongoing defiance of the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to prevent genocide and incitement to commit it. Meanwhile, Israel continues to disregard its obligations as an occupying power in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt), responsible for protecting civilians and providing them with their basic water needs without discrimination, making its violations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In light of the above, PCHR:
[…] According to PCHR’s field follow-up, vast areas of public land and spaces deep into the city centers across the Gaza Strip have been turned into waste dumps. In Gaza City, the “Firas Market” and “Al-Yarmouk” areas are now hosting the largest landfills. The Gaza Municipality[1] has recently warned that the Firas Market dump has become a severe environmental and health hazard for residents, particularly due to the accumulation of over 130,000 tons of waste. This raises serious concerns about potential disease outbreaks, especially amid soaring temperatures, the spread of insects and rodents, and the acute shortage of sanitation and disinfection supplies. Meanwhile, the risk of groundwater contamination continues to grow due to the seepage of toxic waste leachate into the soil and aquifer. It is worth noting that the groundwater has become the last remaining source of water for Gaza’s residents amid the scarcity of other water sources, following Israel’s cutoff of water supplies and the widespread destruction of Gaza’s water infrastructure. […]
[…] catastrophic impacts have also extended to the water and sanitation sector. Desalination and wastewater treatment plants have ceased operations, and water wells have stopped […]