100 days into ceasefire Gaza still deliberately deprived of water...

100 days into ceasefire Gaza still deliberately deprived of water as aid groups forced to scavenge under illegal blockade

Published: 14th January 2026


Oxfam and partners restore limited water access for 156,000 amid near-total water and sanitation infrastructure collapse.

100 days into the ceasefire announcement, in a week that has seen more severe weather hitting Gaza, needs remain desperate. Oxfam and dozens of other INGOs working in Gaza have had to further adapt their operations to keep life-saving work continuing, even as they face uncertainty over new registration requirements imposed by Israeli authorities. 

Despite months of severely restricted aid inflows, amidst power disruptions, access shutdowns and repeated rejection of essential materials, work has continued. Oxfam has worked around the clock with experts from local partner organisations, to restore vital water wells - even sifting through rubble to salvage and repurpose damaged materials, including sheet metal.

According to assessments carried out by Oxfam’s partner, the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), the total cost to rebuild all of the water and sanitation facilities, systems and infrastructure which have been destroyed or damaged by Israel in Gaza will be around $800 million. However, the figure could be even higher, since parts of Gaza remain inaccessible and construction costs have also doubled, due to the lack of materials being allowed in.

The wells restored by Oxfam and partners are located in Gaza City and Khan Younis, and are now providing at least 156,000 people with a life-saving and sustainable water supply. Work continues on a further eight wells and two water pumping stations, which should be working again by February, providing continuous fresh water for 175,000 more people.

Wassem Mushtaha, Oxfam Gaza Response lead, said: “We did not just re-open these wells. We have been solving a moving puzzle under the siege and restrictions to make the wells operational – salvaging parts, repurposing equipment, and paying inflated prices to get critical components, all while trying to keep our teams safe. 

“For as long as systematic policies and practices preventing aid agencies from getting essential supplies into Gaza persist, we will have to keep finding a way to reach people in need. It’s not an acceptable situation, but as humanitarians, we can never give up trying to save lives.

“So much more could have been achieved if our efforts had not been undermined at every turn – which continues to this day. Oxfam alone has over 2 million dollars’ worth of aid and water and sanitation equipment ready to enter Gaza, but these supplies have been repeatedly rejected since March 2025.”

Israeli authorities have made a meaningful humanitarian response impossible by design. Israel defends threats to deregister up to 37 international NGOs - claiming humanitarian organisations’ impacts have been “inconsequential.” But NGOs have repeatedly appealed to Israel to be allowed to do their jobs, calling on Israel to lift restrictions undermining civilian survival. In reality, Israel continues to block effective relief efforts and the restoration of essential infrastructure.

In response to the challenges, Oxfam has increased its procurement of aid from local markets where possible, and continues to expand services in areas such as social-psychological support and health promotion, WASH, emergency livelihoods, multi-purpose cash transfer, food voucher distribution, and public health promotion - essential areas, with less reliance on materials that Israel continues to systematically reject.

Monther Shoblaq, Director General of CMWU, said aid agencies should not have to operate in a way that is needlessly time consuming and exhausting:

“While it’s commendable that dedicated staff are going to such lengths to bring water access to those who need it so desperately, the equipment needed is just across the border, blocked from entry. Agencies are having to resort to salvaging materials from the rubble of bombed water infrastructure and the remains of people’s homes, repurposing parts, and paying inflated prices. This is the direct result of Israeli restrictions, last-resort measures forced by siege conditions.

Needs in Gaza exceed far beyond the aid and reconstruction materials Israel is allowing in and the situation will worsen if Israel’s collective punishment and illegal blockade continues. Water deprivation is just one of the many human rights violations Israel has undertaken with impunity. Oxfam and other organisations who have operated in Gaza for decades must be allowed to respond at the scale.

Ends

Notes to editors

Notes to editor

Since the Gaza ceasefire was announced, 100 days ago, on 8 October, Israel's military attacks continue. Over 440 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed. Over 2,500 residential buildings have been destroyed, leaving people forced into displacement. Severe restrictions on aid inflows persist.

Despite all the access and security challenges, Oxfam has reached over 1.3 million people in Gaza with aid since the beginning of the escalation in conflict in October 2023.

According to the UN, 1.1 million Palestinian in Gaza are in urgent need of assistance in the harsh winter conditions.

In a recent  survey conducted by Oxfam, examining households in Khan Younis and Gaza Governorates, it has found:

  • 87 per cent of people lacked access to basic essential services

  • 89 per cent were dependent on unsustainable water trucking to get just the bare minimum level of water needed to survive

  • 66 per cent of latrines used by those surveyed were partially functioning or in need of repair, meaning many were resorting to open defecation, risking the spread of disease

  • 84 per cent of households reported outbreaks of disease in the last few weeks

  • 77 per cent of households had no income whatsoever

A recent report - Preliminary Environmental Damage Assessment Report of the Israeli War on the Gaza Strip, 2023–2025, published by the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority (EQA), reported: (*Report in Arabic, translation available on request)

Catastrophic Infrastructure Collapse

  • 80%+ of water facilities destroyed - networks, pumping stations, main lines, tanks, wells

  • 700,000 linear meters of water networks destroyed (main and branch lines)

  • 134 of 214 water projects destroyed completely or partially

  • Only 84 facilities operating at 15.5 m³/day capacity

  • Production collapsed 84% - only 21,200 m³/day vs. 255,000 m³/day pre-war

  • Water per capita: As low as 3 liters/day in northern Gaza (vs. WHO emergency minimum of 15 liters/day)

Wells & Infrastructure

  • 162 of 284 wells destroyed completely or partially (93 severely damaged)

  • 9 water tanks of various sizes destroyed

  • 70% of Israeli supply lines to Gaza destroyed

  • Of the 3 desalination plants, only one is fully operational, with one totally destroyed, and one only partially operational

  • Current desalination: 18,500 m³/day (only 55% of pre-war capacity of 33,000 m³/day)

Groundwater Contamination

  • ·97% of groundwater already non-potable pre-war

  • Chloride levels: 1,000 mg/L (WHO limit: 250 mg/L)

  • Nitrate levels: Up to 400 mg/L (WHO limit: 50 mg/L)

  • Water table: Dropped to -19 meters below sea level

  • 120,000 m³/day of untreated sewage discharged into sea and land

Sewage Catastrophe

  • All 6 wastewater treatment plants: Out of service (total capacity: 52 million m³/year)

  • 120,000 m³/day of raw sewage discharged to sea and land

  • Sewage network destruction causing groundwater contamination

  • Beach water: High levels of intestinal parasites (Ascaris, Entamoeba, Giardia

Long term environmental impact

  • Groundwater: Already 97% non-potable - will take generations to recover

In recent days OCHA has reported 

  • Heavy rains have damaged and overwhelmed water infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. To keep de-watering pumps operational, the humanitarian community is engaging with Israeli authorities to allow entry of specialized equipment.

  • Flooding is often compounded by sewage overflow from damaged systems. Yet basic equipment like water pumps, sandbags, and construction materials such as timber and plywood needed to reinforce shelters and drainage are delayed or rejected under “dual-use” restrictions and bureaucratic clearance processes.

  • 40% of the population are living in flood-prone areas

Gaza Humanitarian Situation Report published Jan 9 stated: 

  • Between 5 and 8 January, 36 WASH Cluster partners trucked 21,530 cubic metres (m3) of drinking water and 10,453 m3 of domestic water daily to displaced families through 2,350 water points across the Strip. This effort involves collecting water from three seawater desalination plants, up to 64 brackish water desalination plants, more than 100 groundwater wells, and deploying a fleet of 250 water trucks.

  • On 8 January, the Cluster completed the installation of the Beit Lahia Desalination Plant. The plant consists of three units with a total production capacity of 35 m3 per hour and has begun distributing water to various areas across Beit Lahiya, in North Gaza Governorate.

  • Critical challenges include severe limitations on fuel access for WASH services, which affect water production and distribution, solid waste management, stormwater management and repair activities. There is also a shortage of essential humanitarian items such as generators, reverse osmosis systems, and spare parts for pumps, generators and vehicles. Slow approvals for the entry of water reservoirs and pipes are preventing WASH actors from installing safe water collection points, forcing communities to collect water directly from water trucks.

Contact information

Jacqui Corcoran I  Media & Communications Lead 

Oxfam I Jerusalem, Occupied Palestinian Territory 
+353 87 293 2271/ +353 87 912 3165


Biweekly Brief – January 19, 2026

Impunity unbound: Gaza genocide a launching pad for new world disorder

On Jan. 7, 2026, four days after the US invaded Venezuela and kidnapped its president and his wife,  President Trump – who styled himself the “Acting President of Venezuela” -  statedthat “I don’t need international law” and said he can only be constrained by  “my own morality, my own mind.”  

On the same day, Craig Mokhiber, former director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who had strongly criticized the UN for not doing more to prevent genocide in Gaza, described in Mondoweiss  the depredations of the “US-Israel Axis” and “the dawning of the age of impunity.” 

His piece deserves being quoted at length:

“A new world is being birthed…. A world wholly unconstrained by international law, or even by the most basic and universal moral principles.…the guardrails established since 1945 offered some hope of a world governed, at least in part, by the rule of law, rather than by force alone. And a global consensus had been established whereby the worst crimes –– aggression and genocide –– were agreed to be beyond the pale. The U.S.-Israel Axis, so often indicted for violating international law, has lost patience with the entire project, and, with genocide in Palestine, the raining down of Axis bombs in countries across the globe, and now aggression in Venezuela, it has declared to the world that a new order is born. One in which all must bow to the empire or perish.” 

Putting the UN and international law in the crosshairs

The failure of the international community to utilize embargoes, sanctions and other concrete actions  to stop the Gaza genocide has produced what the Palestinian group Badil calls “a new colonialist strategy” in which “violations of international law are rendered acceptable,  provided the perpetrator is strong enough.”   Simultaneously, the UN is being weakened, with the White House withdrawing from 31 UN entities and 35 non-UN organizations that, according to a Presidential Memorandum, “operate contrary to US national interests, security, economic prosperity or sovereignty.”   The lengthy  list of “International Organizations, Conventions and Treaties that are Contrary to the Interest of the United States” is here.   

The US has leveled sanctions against Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and eight judges and three senior prosecutors on the international Criminal Court that issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and the former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.  Their access to American funds has been blocked and US-based individuals and businesses are barred from working with them.  On Jan. 14, the House passed H.R. 7006, the State Department’s annual funding bill which has now moved to the Senate.  It gives Israel its annual $3.3 billion in military aid (in addition to $500 million provided by a separate defense funding bill) and bars funds to UNRWA, the ICC and the ICJ, as well as the International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.  

Israel’s weapons pipeline

With Israel reportedly being given a green light by the US to mount a new offensive against Hezbollah and potentially joining the US in a new attack on Iran, its supply of weapons and military infrastructure are being refreshed by the US.  One document obtained by Haaretz reveals that the US may earmark $2 billion to subsidize Israel’s ‘Armored Vehicle Acceleration Project’  even as it funds new infrastructure in Israel for its aircraft and a naval commando unit.  Since its founding Israel has received more than $300 billion (adjusted for inflation) from US taxpayers.  

But US public opinion on aid to Israel has been changing dramatically even among Republican voters, with 42% against renewing the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that gives Israel $3.8 per year and is due to expire in 2028.   The YouGov/IMEU poll found that 53% of Republican voters under 44 years old want to end aid to Israel altogether.   In an effort to head off opposition as a new MOU is being debated, Netanyahu has predicted that within a decade Israel could build up its defense sector to such a degree that it would be able to  “taper off”military aid from the US.  The Heritage Foundation, which authored Project 2025, favors a gradual shift from giving Israel funds so it can purchase US weapons to ‘cooperative programs’ like the Iron Dome in which the US would invest billions.   Here is a explanation why such a plan would “further enmesh” the US in the oppression of Palestinians. 

Gaza:  no end to the bombardments

But for now, the US will be supplying a good deal of the firepower if Netanyahu gets a nod from Trump to embark on the reportedly planned all-out offensive in March to disarm Hamas.

For the population in Gaza –– which has dropped by 10.6 % in two years according to the Palestinian Central Board of Statistics –– Israel’s onslaught may have become less lethal, but it never ended.  More than 450 Palestinians have been killed by the military and over 1,200 wounded since the ‘ceasefire’ was declared on Oct. 10, 2025.  With Israel relieved of international pressure and world attention turned elsewhere,  five Palestinians were killed on Jan. 5 and on Jan. 8, airstrikes on densely-packed tents and refugee camps murdered 13 more, including several children. 

The sound of war is impossible to blot out, as the Israeli army has systematically destroyed some 2,500 buildings since the ‘ceasefire’ began, according to The New York Times which stated on Jan. 12:  “The scale of the destruction is stark.  Across eastern Gaza, areas under Israeli control, satellite imagery reveals that entire blocks have been erased since the cease-fire, as well as swaths of farmland and agricultural greenhouses.”  Israel appears determined to ensure that Palestinians have nothing to return to, even as it steadily moves its ‘yellow line’ westward to encompass more than 60% of the land of the Gaza Strip.  

The harsh winter has provided Israel with another weapon in its battle to erase Palestinians.  For the displaced, forced to inhabit fragile tents or bombed out buildings on the verge of collapse, the heavy winter rains and floods have been catastrophic, causing the deaths of at least 40 people.  By Jan.17,  eight children, including newborns,  had died of hypothermia during the ‘ceasefire’. 

According to one report, some 35,000 children have lost their hearing during the more than two years of bombardments.  Although many malnourished children are described as “too hungry and too traumatized to learn” and often collapse from exhaustion,  as many as 268,000 – out of a school-age population of 625,000 - now gather in hundreds of temporary spaces for schooling.  Many of them have to do without pencils and paper which have, according to OCHA, been blocked by Israel “on the grounds that education is not a critical activity during the first phase of the ceasefire.” 

Limping into Phase Two of Trump’s ‘peace plan’

On January 14,  Trump envoy Steve Witkoff announced the beginning of the second phase with the formation of the 15-member Palestinian technocratic committee that is supposed to be an administrative government for Gaza.   

The members of the technocratic committee, which will be led by Dr. Nabil Ali Shaath, a former PA deputy minister, are originally from Gaza and unaffiliated with any Palestinian faction.  No budget has been specified for their work and their mandate is unclear.   Dr. Ali Shaath wants to push the rubble into the sea to build new islands and prepare the ground for reconstruction, but Israel may prevent the entry of construction equipment.  Hamas is reportedly ready to hand over governance to the committee while Netanyahu has said that Witkoff’s announcement was simply a “declarative move.”   

During the second phase, Hamas is supposed to disarm, Israel to withdraw from parts of Gaza, open the Rafah Crossing to two-way traffic and allow reconstruction to begin.   But there is widespread skepticism that Palestinians will receive any solid relief and that Israel will be prepared to abandon its ‘yellow line’ as Israel’s new border, which stakes its control to more than half of the Gaza Strip.  On Jan. 16, Trump warned Hamas to disarm immediately (”they can do this  the easy way, or the hard way”) but said nothing about Israel,  which reportedly killed at least 10 Palestinians in Gaza that same day.  

The “Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place”  

This is what Trump called  the Board of Peace as he proclaimed its creation on Jan. 16.   The heads of state who will form the Board have not been named, but members of the Executive Board include Marco Rubio, Tony Blair, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, Apollo Global Management’s CEO Marc Rowan, US deputy security advisor Robert Gabriel, and World Bank Group president Ajay Banga.   Bulgarian diplomat Nicolay Mladenov will oversee the Office of the High Representative coordinating the Board with the Palestinian technocratic committee.   He will be supported by the Gaza Executive Board, which to date includes Blair, Witkoff, Kushner, Rowan, Cypriot-Israeli businessman Yakir Gabay, Egyptian intelligence head Hassan Rashad, Emirati Minister Ebrahim al-Hashimy and former UN envoy Sigrid Kaag.  Despite Netanyahu’s opposition, Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan and Qatari official Ali al-Thawadi will also be on the Gaza Executive Board.  

On Jan. 17, Haaretz revealed the gist of the Board of Peace charter that had been sent to some 60 heads of state, who are called to fill the need for “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body” (a new UN?) with the mission to “restore dependable and lawful governance and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict” (not just Gaza).  Trump in his personal capacity is named as Board chair, a role that does not end when he is no longer president.  He is given sweepingly broad powers and could only be replaced if he decides to step down or “as a result of incapacity” determined by a unanimous vote of the Board.  

Burying the mirage of a ‘two state solution’

Some members of the Security Council had agreed to sign onto Resolution 2903 handing responsibility for Gaza to the US after a vague clause was added stating that following the “reform” of the PA “the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”  

Phase Two is being embarked upon just as Israel is dispensing tenders for the construction of 3401 residential units and building an ‘apartheid’ road in the vital E1 area (some 3% of the West Bank) which will cut the West Bank in two  and sever the West Bank from East Jerusalem, ensuring that a contiguous Palestinian state can never be created.   For over two decades Israel’s E1 plans had been put on hold because of international pressure, but the recent  complaints of 21 countries have now fallen on deaf ears.  

Israel’s land grab gathers momentum

Settler violence rose 25% in 2025, when there were at least 845 instances of (unpunished) crimes committed by settlers. An “Army of Israeli Youths is Being Deployed to Expel Palestinians in the West Bank” is the headline of a Jan.9 article in Haaretz that describes the actions of Israeli teenagers, many from ‘illegal’ outposts,  who “seem to have been taught in special classes” how to forcibly displace farming and shepherd communities.  On Jan. 16, after settlers protected by soldiers fired live ammunition at worshippers leaving a mosque near the village of al-Mughayyir, soldiers gunned down 14-year-old Mohammed Naasan, who, they said, was “running towards them carrying a rock.”   They didn’t explain why he was killed with a shot to his back.  

After a two-year campaign, by mid Jan. 2026 settlers succeeded in expelling the residents of Ras Ain al-Auja, the last remaining Bedouin community between Ramallah and Jericho in the Jordan Valley.   In addition to the use of violence, the seizure of water resources has been prime weapon in the displacement drive.   According to a settlement monitoring group, settlers now control 100 square miles of territory “where a decade ago only Bedouin herds grazed.”  Israeli sheep and goat farms have meanwhile taken over 198,000 acres (some 300 square miles) throughout the West Bank, denying Palestinians access to land they have been farming for generations. 

Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues its war on refugee camps, with the demolition of more houses in the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarem.  As well as expelling some 40,000 Palestinians from the camps in the north of the West Bank, Israel has been “re-engineering” them by carving broad new roads and adding fortifications and electronic walls.   According to local analyst Mahmoud Khlouf, the goal is to make what had been refugee camps appear as  extensions of nearby cities in order to undermine the claims of refugees.  “It is a prelude to putting an end to the right of return and then expanding settlement construction,” he said.  

Nothing in the West Bank is off limits. On Jan. 6,  Israeli troops raided Beir Zeit University campus as students were demonstrating in support of Palestinian political prisoners, injuring many.   Israel is taking over ancient West Bank archaeological sites like Sebastia  and has just transferred administrative authority over Hebron’s revered Ibrahimi Mosque from the Hebron Municipality to the religious council of the settlement of Kiiryat Arba where the grave of American-born  settler Baruch Goldstein has long been a pilgrimage site.   In Feb. 1994, Goldstein gunned down 29 people who were praying in the Ibrahimi Mosque.   Kiryat Arba is now home to the national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who had once accused Palestinians of practicing ‘apartheid’ against Kiryat Arba’s residents.  In the ‘age of impunity’ will the takeover of Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem’s Old City be next?

Some good news

In response to readers of these Briefs who may feel overwhelmed by the relentlessly bad news, here are two positive developments.  The first is a flourishing student-led initiative at MIT called SPOCS (Small Private Online Courses) that connects volunteers from 30 different academic institutions with hundreds of students in the Gaza Strip, who are offered MIT and non MIT courses as well as material aid.  See their website here.   

The second is the news that after reaching a civil rights settlement with New York Attorney General Letitia James, the violence-embracing ‘Greater Israel’ group Betar-US is dissolving its New York operations.  Betar-US has celebrated the killings in Gaza,  physically attacked critics of Israel, and handed over the names of solidarity activists to ICE, which has an office in Tel Aviv and reportedly trains with the Israeli army.  Although Betar may still be active in the US and worldwide, this is a step in the right direction.  

Nancy Murray, Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine

To read previous briefs, go here.

Many families facing immediate expulsion from their homes..

Some 2,200 residents of Silwan in East Jerusalem, 84 families from the Batan al-Hawa community and 150 families from the al-Bustan community, are facing immediate expulsion from their homes. In the past two years, the Israeli government and the Jerusalem Municipality, working hand in hand with settler organizations, have dramatically escalated their efforts to Judaize the neighbourhood and uproot its Palestinian residents. 

This policy is part of an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing led by the Israeli government and its prime minister. 

B'Tselem joins 17 human rights organizations in Israel in calling on the Israeli public and the international community to bring about the immediate cessation of all expulsion measures in Silwan and throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories.