GENEVA (Palestine Foundation Information Center) Israel is using water as another weapon against Palestinian civilians by deliberately reducing the amount of water available to them, especially potable water sources, imposing famine, and purposefully causing the death of over 2.3 million people as part of its genocide war, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor revealed in a new press release issued on Thursday.
The Euro-Med field team observed significant damage to a desalination plant in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, south of Gaza City, as a result of direct Israeli targeting. This also resulted in the killing of a young man, who was filling a gallon with water, and the wounding of other individuals.
The station, which provided services to at least 50,000 people in several nearby residential neighborhoods, sustained significant damage after being bombed by the Israeli army with a GBU missile that broke through multiple stories and detonated on the first floor.
As summer temperatures rise, the people of the Gaza Strip are facing significant challenges in getting access to water, the statement reads.
Estimates show that since October of last year, the per capita share of water in the Gaza Strip has decreased by 97% due to the extensive destruction of water infrastructure. As a result of the war, the per capita share of water in the Strip has decreased to between 3 and 15 liters per day, while in 2022 it was approximately 84.6 liters per day.
Continued destruction and devastation by the Israeli army renders the Gaza Strip unlivable, particularly after destroying nine out of ten water tanks and half of the water networks, or 350 km out of 700 km.
According to UN estimates, about 96 percent of the population in the Gaza Strip (2.15M people) face high levels of acute food insecurity. While the whole territory is classified in Emergency (IPC Phase 4), over 495,000 people (22 percent of the population) are still facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 5). In this phase, households experience an extreme lack of food, starvation, and exhaustion of coping capacities.
