LONDON: Palestinian water sources have been attacked more than 250 times in the past five years by Israeli military personnel and settlers.
New research published by the California-based Pacific Institute found that water infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank had been targeted with bombs and machinery on 90 occasions since January 2024, and also identified cases of poisoning.
Israeli forces were recorded attacking Palestinians trying to collect water on numerous occasions, including eight people killed by sniper fire in February 2024 and a series of airstrikes in Gaza in April this year that hit two schools, leaving at least 100 injured and destroying latrines and a desalination plant.
Around 90 percent of all water infrastructure in Gaza has been damaged or destroyed by Israel over the last two years, with the Israeli military also blocking civilian access to many areas still with safe water.
In July, 10 Palestinians were killed at Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, including six children, and another 16 were injured while waiting for water at a distribution point.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza while seeking aid amid severe shortages of food, water and medicine, leading a group of UN experts to accuse Israel of weaponizing water scarcity.
Denying access to safe water constitutes a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and is against international humanitarian law.
“Israel has systematically used water to displace and segregate the Palestinian population in their own territories, illegally occupied since 1967, as part of its strategy of apartheid and progressive colonization,” said Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, UN special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation.
“Such practices in Gaza, but also in other armed conflicts such as Sudan, constitute violations of international law, and have been documented as patterns of behavior that constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, that in the case of Gaza in particular, are an important part of a genocidal strategy.”
Israeli settlers, meanwhile, have targeted water infrastructure in the occupied West Bank frequently. In April, settlers destroyed water pipes in the villages of Bardalah and neighboring Khirbat.
Access to drinking water that is both safe and affordable is recognized as a human right by the UN.
