GAZA, (PIC)
As the world marks World Water Day, celebrating the importance of this essential resource, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip endure a starkly different reality. Water, once a basic human right, has been reduced to a daily burden, a struggle for survival under siege.
Amid shattered infrastructure, dwindling supplies, contaminated sources, and chronic power outages, the details of everyday life reveal the scale of a humanitarian catastrophe engulfing more than two million people, one of the most complex and protracted crises of our time.
Between thirst and disease
In Al-Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City, Umm Ahmad begins each day not with hope, but with a desperate search for water. Without it, there is no food, no hygiene, no semblance of normal life inside the tent sheltering her five children.
Since losing both her husband and her home, she walks long distances carrying plastic containers, waiting for hours beside water trucks that may arrive late, or not at all.
The little water she manages to secure barely suffices for drinking. Bathing, especially in winter, becomes an ordeal requiring not just water, but wood to heat it. Her children bathe once a week. The same water is reused to wash clothes.
But the deeper fear is illness. Two of her children suffered severe diarrhea last summer after drinking contaminated water.
“We used to fear bombardment,” she says. “Now we fear thirst.”
Her words capture a grim shift from the immediacy of violent death to the slow violence of deprivation.
Drinking contamination, living with illness
In northern Gaza, Abu Khaled drinks from a polluted well, fully aware of the danger. The water is salty and bitter, but there is no alternative amid the absence of water tankers and the prohibitive cost of desalinated water.
He and his family suffer recurring intestinal diseases.
“We know we are drinking illness,” he says. “But we have no choice.”
In displacement camps, the crisis deepens into a sanitation disaster. Pools of wastewater spread between tents, emitting suffocating stench. Children play nearby, with no safe alternatives, exposing them to infection and disease.
“We no longer know which is worse,” says Umm Mohammad, “thirst or contamination.”
Infrastructure collapse and energy strangulation
The water crisis is inseparable from Gaza’s near-total electricity collapse. Without power, pumps cannot operate, and storing water becomes another daily battle.
Small desalination plants struggle under fuel shortages and soaring maintenance costs. Families now rely on shared generators, running intermittently, if fuel can be secured.
Electricity prices have skyrocketed to levels far beyond what most residents can afford, further crippling access to essential services.
According to humanitarian assessments, vast portions of Gaza’s water infrastructure are no longer functioning, placing the majority of facilities at risk.
Women and girls bear the heaviest burden
The crisis is not gender-neutral. Women and girls spend between six and eight hours daily just to secure water, time stolen from education, safety, and dignity. The destruction is staggering:
• Around 85% of water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed
• Water production has collapsed by more than 60%
• Individuals now receive just 3–15 liters per day, most of it unsafe
• Drinkable water may amount to as little as 2 liters daily, far below emergency standards
Meanwhile, the destruction of sewage systems has led to widespread environmental contamination, threatening groundwater and accelerating the spread of disease.
A manufactured catastrophe
Rehabilitation of Gaza’s water and sanitation systems is estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars. But beyond funding, what is required is political will. Palestinian authorities and humanitarian bodies are calling for urgent international intervention:
• Immediate fuel and equipment access
• Restoration of electricity
• Emergency desalination solutions
• Recognition of Gaza as a “water disaster zone”
Water, they insist, is not a privilege, it is a fundamental human right.
Its systematic denial, especially to women and children, is not merely a humanitarian failure. It is an act that demands accountability.