Atop air strikes, displacement and hunger, an unprecedented water crisis is unfolding across Gaza, heaping further misery on the Palestinian territory’s residents.Gaza was already suffering a water crisis before nearly 22 months of war between Israel and Hamas damaged more than 80% of the territory’s water infrastructure."Sometimes, I feel like my body is drying from the inside, thirst is stealing all my energy and that of my children,” Um Nidal Abu Nahl, a mother-of-four living in Gaza City, said.Water trucks sometimes reach residents and NGOs install taps in camps for a lucky few, but it is far from sufficient.Israel connected some water mains in north Gaza to the Israeli water company Mekorot, after cutting off supplies early in the war, but residents said water still wasn’t flowing.Local authorities said this was due to war damage to Gaza’s water distribution network, with many mains pipes destroyed.Gaza City spokesman Assem al-Nabih said the municipality’s part of the network supplied by Mekorot had not functioned in nearly two weeks.Wells that supplied some needs before the war have also been damaged, with some contaminated by sewage which goes untreated because of the conflict.Many wells in Gaza are simply not accessible, because they are inside active combat zones, too close to Israeli military installations or in areas subject to evacuation orders.At any rate, wells usually run on electric pumps and energy has been scarce since Israel turned off Gaza’s power as part of its war effort.Generators could power the pumps, but hospitals are prioritised for the limited fuel deliveries.Lastly, Gaza’s desalination plants are down, save for a single site reopened last week after Israel restored its electricity supply.Nabih, from the Gaza City municipality, said the infrastructure situation was bleak.More than 75% of wells are out of service, 85% of public works equipment destroyed, 100,000 metres of water mains damaged and 200,000 metres of sewers unusable.Pumping stations are down and 250,000 tonnes of rubbish is clogging the streets."Sewage floods the areas where people live due to the destruction of infrastructure,” says Mohammed Abu Sukhayla from the northern city of Jabalia.In order to find water, hundreds of thousands of people are still trying to extract groundwater directly from wells.But coastal Gaza’s aquifer is naturally brackish and far exceeds salinity standards for potable water.In 2021, the UN children’s agency Unicef warned that nearly 100% of Gaza’s groundwater was unfit for consumption.With clean water nearly impossible to find, some Gazans falsely believe brackish water to be free of bacteria.Aid workers in Gaza have had to warn repeatedly that even if residents can get used to the taste, their kidneys will inevitably suffer.Though Gaza’s water crisis has received less media attention than the ongoing hunger one, its effects are just as deadly."Just like food, water should never be used for political ends,” Unicef spokeswoman Rosalia Bollen said.She said that, while it’s very difficult to quantify the water shortage, "there is a severe lack of drinking water”.
August 05, 2025 | 08:43 AM