Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has accused the Israeli occupation authority of using access to water as a weapon against Palestinians and systematically depriving people in Gaza of water in a campaign of collective punishment.
According to a report published on its website on Tuesday, MSF called on the Israeli authorities to immediately restore water for people at the required levels in Gaza.
“Israel’s allies must use their leverage to pressure Israel to stop impeding humanitarian access, including water infrastructure needs,” MSF said.
“The deliberate denial of water from Palestinians is an integral part of Israel’s genocide,” MSF underlined.
MSF’s report, “Water as a Weapon: Israel’s Destruction and Deprivation of Water and Sanitation in Gaza,” documents how the Israeli authorities’ repeated weaponization of water is not an isolated act, but part of a recurrent, systematic and cumulative pattern.
“It is occurring alongside the direct killing of civilians, the devastation of health facilities, and the flattening of homes forcing mass displacement. Together, they constitute a deliberate infliction of destructive and inhumane conditions on Palestinians in Gaza,” the report says.
“Israeli authorities know that without water life ends, yet they have deliberately and systematically obliterated water infrastructure in Gaza, whilst consistently blocking water-related supplies from entering,” Claire San Filippo, MSF emergency manager, said.
“Palestinians have been injured and killed simply trying to access water,” San Filippo affirmed, adding that “this deprivation, combined with dire living conditions, extreme overcrowding, and a collapsed health system, creates a perfect storm for the spread of diseases.”
MSF cited data issued by the UN, the European Union and the World Bank, saying that Israel had destroyed or damaged nearly 90 percent of water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza, including desalination plants, boreholes, pipelines, and sewage systems.
MSF said its teams documented the Israeli military shooting at clearly identified water trucks, or destroying boreholes that were a lifeline for tens of thousands of people.
Violent incidents have often occurred as water was being distributed to people, injuring or killing Palestinians and aid workers, and damaging equipment, according to the report.
