According to a new Oxfam report, “Water War Crimes: How Israel has weaponized water in its military campaign in Gaza”—
Israel's use of water as a weapon has plummeted Gaza's already scarce water supply by 94%, creating a deadly health catastrophe.
• Israel damages or destroys five water and sanitation sites every three days. The extreme lack of clean water and sanitation has caused more than a quarter (26%) of Gaza’s population to fall severely ill from easily preventable diseases.
• Israel has cut Gaza's external water supply, is systematically destroying water facilities, and deliberately obstructing the entry of aid, and has thereby reduced the already limited amount of water available in Gaza by 94%—to 4.74 litres a day per person. This amount is less than one third of the recommended minimum in emergencies and less than a single toilet flush. This amount is for all uses including drinking, cooking, and washing.
• Israel destroyed 70% of Gaza's sewage pumps and 100% of wastewater treatment plants, as well as the main water quality testing laboratories.
Israel's overall use of water as a weapon against Palestinians was condemned by the International Court of Justice in its July 19 Advisory Opinion on the illegality of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. The ICJ ruling calls for Israel “to bring an end to its presence in the Occupied Palestinian territory as rapidly as possible” and provide reparations for Palestinians.
Regarding water, the report
• criticizes Israel for controlling the water resources in the West Bank, which has resulted in Palestinians' drastically reduced access to water to below the levels recommended by the World Health Organization.
• criticizes Israel for prioritizing the supply of water to the illegal settlements, to the detriment of Palestinian communities, which must suffer lengthy and frequent water outages.
• criticizes Israel for forbidding Palestinians from constructing and maintaining water installations.
• criticizes Israel for preventing Palestinians from accessing and extracting water from the Jordan River, which also forces Palestinians to buy significant quantities of water from Israel at a high price.
• criticizes Israel’s water and land policies, which drastically reduced Palestinian agricultural land. The share of agriculture in the gross domestic product of the Occupied Palestinian Territory declined from 35% in 1972 to less than 4% in 2020.
• criticizes Israel's expansion of settlements and of industrial zones, which pollutes freshwater and groundwater.
"I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed." — Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Oct. 9, 2023.
As of July 23, 2024, the number of people Israel killed surpasses 39,000. (Approximately the population of the Marshall Islands.) The number of people Israel wounded surpasses 90,000. (Equal to the population of Trenton, New Jersey.)
Sources : Oxfam report, Water War Crimes, International Court of Justice, ICJ ruling.
