June 15 Water Fact
Soon after the 1967 war, Israeli leaders discussed how to expel the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians newly under its military occupation. Levi Eshkol, then Israel’s prime minister, proposed: “If we don’t give them enough water they won’t have a choice.”
Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip has erased entire families, and destroyed hospitals, clinics (and the only lab for conducting Covid-19 tests), and the roads accessing them. It has also destroyed the water and sanitation infrastructure and the electricity system, leaving Gazans with only 2 to 3 hours of electricity a day.
The Gaza Strip’s 365 square kilometers is home to two million Palestinians. Its density is 5,479 people per square kilometer.
In 1947, about 80,000 Palestinians were living in the towns and villages that became the Gaza Strip. Their aquifer at that time produced 60 million cubic meters of water a year, sufficient to serve the residents and later to serve the additional 200,000 Palestinians who were expelled to Gaza in 1948 and became refugees. Today, after Israel’s bombardments, more than 95% of the water in Gaza is not potable.
More than 800,000 Gazans, 43% of the population, are under 14 years old. These children have been traumatized by four wars and have never had a drink of water from their faucets.
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