Ecological Toll: Israel-Hamas conflict: A war over water

•  KERSTEN KNIPP

ISRAEL: Experts are sounding the alarm: The threat of famine in the Gaza Strip is real. If nothing changes, famine would likely start in the northern end of the enclave by May. Half of the people still living in the area are already in dire straits, say experts from the multinational expert group that works on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative. The IPC is made up of representatives from 19 international organisations, including the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, Oxfam, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, the World Food Programme, and Save the Children.

The IPC defines famine, the most serious level of its “food insecurity scale,” as a situation where “at least 20% of the population is affected, with about one out of three children being acutely malnourished and two people dying per day for every 10,000 inhabitants due to outright starvation or to the interaction of malnutrition and disease.”

The report says the current situation in Gaza will likely result in that scenario in the near future. Access to medical care, water and sanitation will also be limited. “Access to sufficient clean water is a matter of life and death, and children in Gaza have barely a drop to drink,” the director of UNICEF, Catherine Russell, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) in December. “Without safe water, many more children will die.”

The conflict in Gaza is worsening a water problem that was already of serious and ongoing concern. The problem is partially due to Gaza’s geographical location on the coast. Most of the water locals require comes from a natural groundwater reservoir, which tends to have a higher salinity level because it’s so close to the sea. The groundwater reservoir is also polluted by untreated wastewater. Damage to water infrastructure from previous conflicts in Gaza also contributes to further contamination. Back in 2011, the UN had already determined that over 90% of the groundwater in the enclave was unsafe to drink without it being treated.

All this makes locals living in the Gaza Strip even more dependent on Israel for their drinking water. After the October 7 Hamas terror attacks, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 people in Israel, the Israeli state cut off the water supply and stopped allowing deliveries of fuel into Gaza. The Israeli military campaign has since killed over 30,000 people.

Two out of three pipes bringing water into Gaza were reopened by Israel by the end of October. Israeli media outlet Times of Israel said that this meant that 28.5 million liters were being piped into the enclave daily. Before October 7, around 49 million liters had flowed into the enclave daily. However, the lack of fuel also impacts water supplies. Diesel is used to power electricity generators and Gaza’s only power plant. That electricity is used to run the desalination and water treatment plants. This means that lack of fuel also equals lack of clean water.

Water problems in the Gaza Strip have not been addressed for years, said Tobias von Lossow, a researcher and expert on water security at the Clingendael Institute, based in the Netherlands. Among other things, larger water desalination plants were necessary. “But these have not yet been built, even though, apart from water treatment and deliveries from Israel, there are virtually no other options for supplying the population with clean drinking water,” von Lossow told DW. The water situation in the occupied West Bank is slightly less problematic. But there are water shortages here too.