<\/p>\n
This is a non-United Nations document. The United Nations provides these documents only as a convenience for reference purposes, and the inclusion of a document does not imply the endorsement of its content by the United Nations.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n 19 December 2024<\/p>\n \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a\u0629<\/a><\/p>\n Since October 2023, Israeli authorities have deliberately obstructed Palestinians\u2019 access to the adequate amount of water required for survival in the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a person needs between 50 and 100 liters of water per day in order to ensure that their \u201cmost basic needs are met.\u201d In protracted emergency situations, the minimum amount of water required is 15 liters of water per person per day for drinking and washing. Yet, between October 2023 and September 2024, Israeli authorities\u2019 actions have deprived the majority of the more than 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza of access to even that bare minimum amount of water, which has contributed to death and widespread disease. For many in Gaza, much or all of the water they have had access to is not suitable for drinking.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can’t find drinkable water, we drink the sea water,\u201d one father displaced to a school in Rafah told Human Rights Watch in December 2023.\u00a0\u201cIt happened to me many times when I had to drink the sea water. You don\u2019t understand how much we are suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n Because of the decimation of the healthcare system in Gaza since October 2023, including disease tracking, the true scale of those harmed or killed by Israeli authorities\u2019 actions that have deprived Palestinians of adequate water is unknown and may likely never be fully understood. However, these policies have likely contributed to thousands of deaths. Doctors and nurses told Human Rights Watch that they had seen numerous infants, children, and adults die from a combination of malnutrition, dehydration, and disease.<\/p>\n Human Rights Watch interviewed 66 Palestinians in Gaza between October 18, 2023, and July 23, 2024. They described the near-impossibility of securing water for themselves and their families. Human Rights Watch also spoke to four of Gaza\u2019s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) employees, 31 doctors and healthcare professionals, and 15 individuals working with UN agencies and international aid organizations in Gaza, who described Israeli forces\u2019 actions that have deprived Palestinians in Gaza of water, as well as the devastating health impacts, including death. Human Rights Watch also analyzed satellite imagery and verified photographs and videos captured between the beginning of the hostilities and August 2024. These show extensive damage and destruction to water and sanitation infrastructure, including the apparently deliberate, systematic razing of the solar panels powering four of Gaza\u2019s six wastewater treatment plants by Israeli ground forces, as well as Israeli soldiers filming themselves demolishing a key water reservoir.<\/p>\n Israeli authorities did not reply to letters sent on June 10 and November 29, 2024, requesting information regarding specific attacks on water and sanitation infrastructure that Human Rights Watch documented.<\/p>\n Israeli authorities made clear their intention to deprive the population of Gaza of necessities after October 7, 2023. On October 9, then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered \u201ca complete siege\u201d on Gaza, stating \u201c[t]here will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed.\u201d On October 11, 2023, then-Energy Minister and current Minister of Defense Israel Katz echoed the call for electricity, water, and fuel to be cut, and on October 12, 2023, he called for humanitarian aid to be cut as well.<\/p>\n Since then, Israeli authorities and military forces have matched these statements with actions.\u00a0Israeli authorities and forces cut off the water supply piped into Gaza from Israel and later restricted the supply, cut off the electricity supply from Israel to Gaza that was needed to operate water pumps, desalination plants, and sanitation infrastructure within Gaza, and blocked and restricted the fuel needed to run generators in the absence of electricity. They have also blocked United Nations agencies and humanitarian aid organizations from delivering critical water-related materials and other humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, damaged, and in some cases, deliberately destroyed water and sanitation infrastructure, including where Israeli forces were in control of the area, and prevented repairs by blocking imports of nearly all water-related material. Some Israeli strikes have killed water utility workers as they were trying to make repairs, while others have destroyed the main water-utility warehouse in Gaza which housed spare parts, equipment, and supplies critical to water production.<\/p>\n On January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued provisional measures that included requiring Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance, and prevent and punish incitement to commit genocide. The measures were adopted as part of a case brought by South Africa alleging that Israel was violating the Genocide Convention of 1948. At the time, the ICJ determined that \u201cmany Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have no access to the most basic foodstuffs, potable water, electricity, essential medicines or heating.\u201d Since then, the ICJ has issued two further provisional measures, reaffirming its prior orders, and stated in May that the orders should be \u201cimmediately and effectively implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n Since that time, Israel has violated the ICJ\u2019s measures, including preventing \u201cthe deprivation of access to adequate food and water.\u201d<\/p>\n In the days after the Hamas-led attacks by Palestinian armed groups in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, senior Israeli officials, including former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and former Energy Minister and current Defense Minister Israel Katz made public statements expressing the government\u2019s aim to deprive civilians in Gaza of water.<\/p>\n Since that time, Israeli authorities have continued to call for the collective punishment of the population of Gaza, including through cutting off water and other items essential to life. While Israeli authorities have also made statements calling for measures to be taken to specifically target Hamas and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, authorities\u2019 actions have amounted to cutting off or restricting water and other items essential to life to the whole of the population of Gaza. These measures persisted after the ICJ ruling in January 2024, and subsequent ICJ rulings, ordered Israeli authorities to end the risk of violations of the Genocide Convention. On August 5, for example, Israeli Finance Minister and Minister in the Ministry of Defense Bezalel Smotrich reiterated that Israel would be justified in depriving the civilian population of Gaza of water.<\/p>\n Immediately following their statements about plans to cut off water to Gaza in the aftermath of the Hamas-led armed groups\u2019 October 7 assault, Israeli authorities proceeded to do exactly that. On October 9, 2023, they cut off water being piped into Gaza from Israel, which accounted for about 12 percent of Gaza\u2019s total water supply and more than half of its drinking water.<\/p>\n While Israeli authorities resumed piping some water into Gaza from Israel at the end of October 2023, as of September 2024, they have continued to restrict the amount of water entering through the pipelines.\u00a0The water from the pipelines has been insufficient to offset the decrease in water production caused by Israeli authorities\u2019 cutting off of electricity supply and blocking and restricting of fuel imports, and by the damage or destruction of water infrastructure.<\/p>\n Israeli authorities also cut off the electricity that Israel supplies to Gaza, plunging the strip into darkness and impairing the operability of nearly all of Gaza\u2019s water and sanitation infrastructure, as well as other infrastructure necessary for the delivery of goods and services essential to life, including hospitals.<\/p>\n On October 12, 2023, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that \u201cmost residents in the Gaza Strip no longer have access to drinking water from service providers or domestic water through pipelines.\u201d<\/p>\n Israeli authorities also initially blocked completely, and later severely restricted, the entry of fuel into Gaza. Israel\u2019s obstruction of the entry of fuel has been particularly \u201cdebilitating\u201d to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure in Gaza, which relied on fuel-powered generators after Israeli officials cut off electricity. After an initial five-week cut-off of all fuel imports into Gaza, Israeli authorities only allowed in an average of about one-fifth of the needed fuel for essential humanitarian activity from November 15, 2023, to August 31, 2024.<\/p>\n As a result, most water and sanitation infrastructure across Gaza has been unable to operate, according to the United Nations. Fuel is also needed for hospitals, rescue efforts, the delivery of aid, and to run bakeries, among other essential needs. Though Israeli authorities have allowed in varying amounts of fuel since the start of hostilities, it has been too little to power major water and sanitation infrastructure in the absence of electricity, and has been well-below pre-October 7 levels despite the greater need.<\/p>\n On February 29, 2024, the Union of Gaza Strip Municipalities stated that \u201c[t]he depletion of fuel has severely affected the provision of essential services, resulting in [a] significant deficit in water supplies, solid waste accumulation, and wastewater leakage onto streets and residential areas.\u201d<\/p>\n According to OCHA, between October 2023 and mid-February, 2024, water production in Gaza stood at just 5.7 percent of what it was before the current hostilities. Oxfam has also estimated that about 80 percent of the produced water is lost in leakages due to damage to the water network during the hostilities, meaning that the amount of water that people are receiving is far less than what is produced.<\/p>\n On March 28, the ICJ reaffirmed its January order and indicated additional measures ordering Israeli authorities to provide \u201cunhindered\u201d and \u201cat scale \u2026 urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance including food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements.\u201d Israeli authorities have flouted these orders.<\/p>\n As of September 2024, Israeli authorities continued to cut electricity to Gaza. Though Israeli authorities resumed piping some water into Gaza at the end of October 2023, and increased water piping in April 2024, the total combined water production\u2014including water from the pipelines, desalination facilities, wells, and other sources\u2014only rose to about 10 to 25 percent of pre-October 7 levels. As of August 2024, water production levels remained at about 25 percent of pre-October 7 levels, and the amount of water Palestinians in Gaza had access to was still far below the amount of water the population of Gaza requires for survival.<\/p>\n In the most recent, and most rigorous, study measuring water access throughout Gaza, nearly two-thirds of assessed households in August 2024 reported receiving less than six liters of water for drinking and cooking per person per day, below the nine recommended by international standards, and \u201capproximately 1.4 million people face unsafe conditions when accessing sanitation facilities.\u201d\u00a0The survey was unable to gather data from some areas considered to be \u201chard to reach.\u201d<\/p>\n Nearly every civilian in Gaza has also been displaced since the start of hostilities, many to areas that lack adequate water infrastructure, undermining people\u2019s access to water regardless of the negligible improvements in the amount of water production.<\/p>\n Israeli authorities have also significantly restricted humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, prevented aid deliveries to different areas within Gaza at various times, and have specifically blocked supplies related to water treatment and production.<\/p>\n Before October 7, 2023, about 500 trucks per working day entered Gaza with commercial and humanitarian goods. From October 21, 2023, to May 5, 2024, when Israel seized and closed the Rafah border crossing, only an average of 132 trucks per day entered; from May 5 to August 3, only an average of 33 trucks per day entered.<\/p>\n Of the aid that has entered Gaza, the Israeli military blocked much of it from reaching the north. Though the Israeli military ordered the entire population of over 1 million people to evacuate northern Gaza on October 13, 2023\u2014one of the Israeli government\u2019s many forced evacuations amounting to the war crime of forced displacement\u2014many remained there, including people who could not flee due to age, disability, or other reasons, and others later returned. Those who remained did not have access to potable water from November 13, 2023, to at least April 15, 2024.\u00a0Israel\u2019s \u201cevacuation system,\u201d which has forcibly displaced the majority of people in Gaza, amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n For several months Israeli authorities repeatedly blocked aid that entered Gaza, including fuel needed to run generators for water and sanitation, from reaching areas in the north, despite reports of the severe hunger and thirst the population there was facing, a pattern that OCHA has described as \u201csystematic.\u201d<\/p>\n On February 24, a consortium of humanitarian organizations working in Gaza stated that \u201calmost no aid is distributed beyond Rafah,\u201d the southernmost of Gaza\u2019s four governorates.<\/p>\n The ICJ, in its third set of provisional measures in May 2024, reaffirmed its previous two orders, and ordered Israel to keep the Rafah crossing open \u201cfor unhindered provision at scale of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.\u201d Israel violated these orders.\u00a0Israeli forces have closed the Rafah crossing since May 5, 2024.<\/p>\n For at least one month after the Israeli military began its ground attack on Rafah, almost no water or other humanitarian aid was accessible in the city, as the military further displaced most of the roughly 1 million people who had fled there from elsewhere. In many cases, people were displaced to areas with no access to services, including food, water, and aid. As part of the Israeli military\u2019s ground attack on Rafah, they also seized and shut down the Rafah border crossing, which was a critical entry point for aid.<\/p>\n Israeli authorities have barred nearly all water-related humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, including water filtration systems, water tanks, and materials needed to repair water infrastructure.\u00a0Several individuals working with humanitarian aid organizations told Human Rights Watch that Israeli authorities bar items they consider \u201cdual use,\u201d which they say could be used for military purposes. The humanitarian aid workers said that Israeli authorities have not provided a list of what items are included and do not provide written explanations or allow appeals of the rejection of life-saving items.<\/p>\n Israeli forces have also carried out attacks on humanitarian aid workers. Israeli forces have carried out at least eight attacks on aid workers\u2019 convoys and premises in Gaza since October 2023, killing or injuring at least 31 aid workers and those with them, even though aid groups had provided their coordinates to the Israeli authorities to ensure their protection.\u00a0As of August 28,\u00a02024, more than 294 aid workers have been killed in the hostilities.<\/p>\n Furthermore, a number of governments suspended all funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which has been critical to providing water, food, shelter, and other vital services to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, after the Israeli government alleged that 19 of the agency\u2019s 30,000 staff participated in the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023. On August 5, 2024, the UN Office of Oversight (OIOS) investigation found that in 10 cases there was insufficient or no evidence obtained to support the staff\u2018s involvement, and that the nine remaining staff members may have been involved in the attacks, all of whom were fired or have since died. Another independent review found that the agency itself was not at fault.\u00a0While all countries outside of the US have resumed funding to UNRWA, the funding cuts, and the US government\u2019s refusal to fulfill outstanding pledged contributions from late 2023 as well as its ban on new funding through at least March 2025, have had a severe impact on the agency\u2019s ability to respond to the immense needs in Gaza.<\/p>\n The government of Israel has long campaigned against UNRWA and called for its closure. On October 28, 2024, the Israeli parliament passed two bills set to come into effect in January 2025, which aim to prevent UNRWA from operating within Israel\u2019s \u201csovereign territory,\u201d prohibit Israeli authorities from having any contact with UNRWA and its representatives, and terminate the June 1967 agreement between Israel and UNRWA, which facilitates the agency’s operations in the occupied Palestinian territory. UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres stated that the bills \u201ccould prevent UNRWA from continuing its essential work\u201d in Palestine. The legislation would not only threaten aid for Gaza but also undermine UNRWA\u2019s regional capacity to provide humanitarian assistance, education, and other essential services.<\/p>\n The State of Palestine Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Cluster (WASH) Cluster is a consortium of international organizations, United Nations agencies, international non-governmental organizations, and academic institutes led by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) that coordinates humanitarian response on WASH-related issues in the West Bank and Gaza. An individual working on the WASH response in Gaza said the cluster faced a range of challenges from Israeli authorities, including preventing repairs to WASH infrastructure, blocking needed WASH materials from entering Gaza, and not ensuring the safety of those providing WASH-related aid. He said: \u201cI’ve never been in a response where two months after my arrival the situation is worse for the people than when we arrived. It’s the whole thing. We are stopped at so many levels [by Israeli authorities].\u201d<\/p>\n Human Rights Watch research found that since the start of hostilities, Israeli forces deliberately attacked and damaged or destroyed several major WASH facilities, including four of the Gaza Strip\u2019s six wastewater treatment plants and an important water reservoir supplying water to people in Rafah in southern Gaza. In several cases, Human Rights Watch found evidence that Israeli ground forces were in control of the areas at the times they destroyed WASH infrastructure, including evidence such as a video of troops methodically laying and wiring up explosives inside a water reservoir, and satellite imagery showing bulldozer tracks on razed large solar-panel arrays which power wastewater plants. This evidence indicates that the destruction was not incidental to attacks on military objects, but rather, deliberate.<\/p>\n The overall damage to water infrastructure in Gaza during the hostilities has been massive. In January 2024, the World Bank and Ipsos, a market research firm, estimated that nearly 60 percent of Gaza\u2019s water and sanitation infrastructure had been damaged or destroyed by the hostilities.\u00a0By August 2024, they reported that the percentage of WASH infrastructure that had been destroyed or damaged had risen to 84.6 percent.\u00a0While it was not possible to determine the party responsible for the damage or destruction from these reports, the devastating impact on WASH infrastructure during the hostilities increases the likelihood of civilian harm in the deliberate cases of Israeli forces\u2019 destruction of WASH infrastructure that Human Rights Watch documented.<\/p>\n OCHA reported on July 24 that the \u201cwater situation [in Gaza] was [continuing] to deteriorate.\u201dBetween July 24 and July 27, 2024, an Israeli soldier posted a video of himself and other soldiers laying explosives to destroy an important water reservoir serving Rafah in the south. The video, which was later deleted but reshared by other accounts, ends with a wide shot of the reservoir being destroyed in an explosion.<\/p>\n Israeli forces have also attacked and killed water workers while they were carrying out repairs and other activities to bring the population more water, and have destroyed materials needed for water repairs. In January 2024, Israeli forces also attacked the Gaza\u2019s water authority\u2019s\u2014the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU)\u2014main warehouse, where many employees and their families were sheltering, and subsequently set fire to the US$8 million of WASH equipment being stored there, virtually destroying the CMWU\u2019s ability to repair damaged infrastructure.<\/p>\n They have also attacked water workers who were attempting to make repairs or conducting other water-related work. Following a process known as deconfliction meant to enable the safe passage of humanitarian workers in conflicts, the water workers\u2019 coordinates had been shared with the Israeli military ahead of being sent out to make the repairs, CMWU employees said.<\/p>\n The amount of destruction to the water network caused by hostilities, and the general inability to make repairs, has led to significant water loss from the water entering Gaza\u2019s water network. The CMWU and Oxfam estimated that approximately 80 percent of water produced in Gaza, as of July 2024, was being lost in leakages in the network as well as in spillage from water being delivered by trucking.<\/p>\n In November 2023, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, stated that Israel was using water \u201cas a weapon of war\u201d by making the provision of this basic service contingent on meeting its objectives in the fighting.\u00a0Arrojo-Agudo said that \u201c[e]very hour that passes with Israel preventing the provision of safe drinking water in the Gaza strip, in brazen breach of international law, puts Gazans at risk of dying of thirst and diseases related to the lack of safe drinking water.\u201d<\/p>\n In July 2024, after conducting tests in Jordan, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the poliovirus was found in sewage that runs between overcrowded tents of people who have been displaced by Israeli air strikes. One month later, on August 16, the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed the first case of polio in an unvaccinated 10-month-old child in Gaza, the first case present in Gaza in 25 years. On the same date, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that three children were showing symptoms of acute flaccid paralysis, raising concern that the virus could be spreading among children in Gaza. On August 23, the WHO confirmed that the 10-month-old child in whom the first case of polio was found is paralyzed.<\/p>\n The WHO has reported that the consumption of contaminated water has significantly increased the risk of bacterial infections like diarrhea.\u00a0According to UNICEF, \u201ccases of diarrhea in children under five years of age rose from 48,000 to 71,000 in just one week starting 17 December.\u201d\u00a0The 3,200 new daily cases recorded in December represented a 2,000 percent increase from the average rate of cases prior to October 7.\u00a0As of October 17, there were at least 669,000 recorded cases of acute watery diarrhea since October 7, 2023, according to the WHO.<\/p>\n The total number of diarrhea cases, as well as of other diseases, is likely to be much higher, according to several doctors and health officials who spoke to Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n A doctor who volunteered in Gaza in March and April 2024 told Human Rights Watch that during his two weeks treating patients there, he, other doctors, and virtually every person he encountered had diarrhea.<\/p>\n One man, describing what happened after he was forced to resort to getting unclean water from a well in his neighborhood rather than from the regular water network, said, \u201cI was getting sick, my kids [ages 2 and 3] were vomiting and had diarrhea, and I had diarrhea. …. This was from the moment we started drinking the [dirty] water.\u201d<\/p>\n The WHO also reported that there have been over 132,000 cases of jaundice, a sign of hepatitis A, as of October 2024. A doctor and a nurse described having multiple patients, mostly children, who died from hepatitis A, a disease that is treatable under normal circumstances. Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyeh, the director of Kamal Adwan hospital, said that about 5-10 percent of the children who came to Kamal Adwan hospital with suspected cases of hepatitis A died \u201cdue to lack of capabilities to diagnose, treat, and monitor them,\u201d compared with a normal mortality rate of 0.1 percent in children under 15 years old.<\/p>\n The inability to effectively wash and shower, and the unsanitary conditions people are living in, have also led to over 225,000 cases of skin diseases, and contributed to the spread of over 1 million cases of acute respiratory infections as of October 17, 2024, according to the WHO.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we cannot get drinking water, taking a shower is a dream,\u201d said a 36-year-old woman who was displaced to Khan Younis.<\/p>\n Dehydration and malnutrition also undermine people\u2019s abilities to heal from wounds and disease, leading to infections, illnesses, and deaths. Several healthcare professionals told Human Rights Watch that they saw many people unable to heal from wounds, including surgical wounds, or had patients who succumbed to disease because of their weakened immune systems from malnutrition and dehydration.\u00a0One emergency room nurse told Human Rights Watch that they were often forced to make the decision not to resuscitate children who were severely malnourished and dehydrated, explaining that \u201cit was difficult to even resuscitate [people with] severe burns or wounds, because when [they] don’t have the hydration they die very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n The WHO has reported that \u201cdamaged water and sanitation systems, and dwindling cleaning supplies have made it almost impossible to maintain basic infection prevention and control measures\u201d in health facilities.\u00a0The lack of clean water and sanitation has also made it difficult, if not impossible, to treat water- and sanitation-related diseases, according to a public health physician at an international organization.<\/p>\n Several doctors and nurses described seeing large numbers of infants suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, and infection within their first few months of life, in some cases leading to death.\u00a0Asma Taha, a pediatric nurse practitioner who volunteered in Gaza in May 2024, said that she saw one to three babies die \u201cevery day\u201d from a combination of these causes.<\/p>\n Breastfeeding mothers often did not have the ability to breastfeed due to malnutrition and dehydration, leaving them to feed infants formula mixed with dirty water. An emergency room nurse who volunteered in Gaza, Abeerah Muhammed, also described seeing many pregnant women who were dehydrated, causing their fetuses\u2019 heartbeats to slow down.\u00a0She said that many pregnant women also came in with toxic shock or septic shock due to a combination of disease and malnutrition.<\/p>\n Bader Mosleh, a disability rights activist with a visual disability and father of three, told Human Rights Watch in October 2023 that he walked three kilometers each day to fill one plastic container of water, which holds several liters of water, for his family and five other families he was hosting. \u201cHaving 40 people in my house, that was not enough. We used small coffee cups to drink water to make sure everyone gets some.\u201d Mosleh was reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike on December 7, 2023.<\/p>\n Accessing water is especially hard for people with disabilities and UNICEF had previously reported that children with disabilities generally face additional difficulties accessing water, sanitation, and hygiene compared to other children.<\/p>\n A.J., 27, who uses a wheelchair and was sheltering in a school in Rafah in December 2023 together with his father who has quadriplegia and a sister who is blind, said that it is harder for both children and adults with disabilities to physically access adequate water because of their disabilities. \u201cBecause I am in a wheelchair, I am not able to go out and look for water,\u201d he said. The amount of water available at the school where A.J. and his family were staying was scarce: they received only one liter per person each day, and there were days when they received none.<\/p>\n The mother of 14-year-old Ghazal, who has cerebral palsy, said that her daughter struggled to access sanitation and wash facilities due to inaccessibility and could only use the toilet or shower if her mother or sister were present to help her.<\/p>\n As of September 2024, Ghazal had fled Rafah and was sheltering with her family in a tent in al-Qarara, in Khan Younis. Accessing water remains a problem for her and her family. \u201cWe all now drink toxic, contaminated, and undrinkable water. [Ghazal\u2019s] stomach pains haven\u2019t stopped\u2026 We don\u2019t have enough money to buy bottled water. We can\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n Deaths in Gaza attributable to dehydration, water-borne diseases, and other complications resulting from a lack of clean water and sanitation are likely vastly underreported.<\/p>\n The decimation of the healthcare system, including disease tracking, has meant that confirmed cases of disease, as well as illnesses and deaths suspected to be linked to water-borne disease, dehydration, and starvation are not being systematically tracked or reported.<\/p>\n Taha stated that she believed many deaths at the clinic where she was volunteering went unregistered with Gaza\u2019s Ministry of Health. \u201cWe had many babies brought in dead, malnourished. I don’t know if anyone registered them\u2026 [The doctors] have no time, they were overworked. They worked 24 hour shifts, 36 hour shifts.\u201d\u00a0She added that \u201c[a]t some point we didn’t even have papers to write on.\u201d<\/p>\n In an October 2024 letter to the Biden administration, 99 American physicians and nurses who volunteered in Gaza between October 2023 and October 2024 stated:<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, half of whom are children, to areas with no running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking. It is virtually guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five. We worry that unknown thousands have already died from the lethal combination of malnutrition and disease, and that tens of thousands more will die in the coming months. Most of them will be young children.<\/p>\n The letter cited expert reports on food insecurity in Gaza since October 2023, which have quantified the number of people facing \u201cemergency\u201d and \u201ccatastrophic\u201d levels of malnutrition. Based on the average daily death rates per-10,000-people at those levels of food insecurity, the healthcare providers estimated that more than 60,000 people in Gaza had died from malnutrition between October 2023 and June 2024, in addition to the tens of thousands directly killed in the hostilities.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if the war stops, the level of destruction and damage to water and sanitation infrastructure will mean that humanitarian efforts will not be able to respond in a timely manner to save lives,\u201d said Lama Abdul Samad, a WASH technical advisor on Oxfam\u2019s Global Humanitarian Team.\u00a0\u201cThat means that people may continue to suffer from a lack of water and food, and may become gravely sick due to a lack of sanitation and spread of diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n The impacts of Israeli forces\u2019 destruction and damage to the water and sanitation infrastructure have been exacerbated by widespread destruction and damage during the hostilities to other elements critical for sustaining life and realizing human rights in Gaza, including healthcare facilities, housing, and agriculture.<\/p>\n In December, M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) stated that Israeli authorities\u2019 attacks on healthcare had led, by December 2023, to the \u201ccomplete collapse \u2026 of the healthcare system in Gaza.\u201dThe destruction of Gaza\u2019s healthcare infrastructure has left hundreds of thousands of people with water-borne illnesses, dehydration, and other water- and sanitation-related health problems without adequate access to health care.<\/p>\n Israeli forces have also apparently destroyed agricultural products and land, including razing orchards, fields, and greenhouses, according to Human Rights Watch\u2019s analysis of satellite imagery. As of December 30, 2023, The Wall Street Journal had already reported that as many as 80 percent of the buildings in northern Gaza had been damaged or destroyed in the hostilities, as well as half of the buildings across all of Gaza, based on analysis of satellite data.<\/p>\n Until significant reconstruction can take place, the widespread destruction to critical infrastructure, housing, and agricultural land will have severe consequences on people\u2019s abilities to access water and to maintain basic sanitation.<\/p>\n Israeli forces have also impacted people\u2019s lack of access to water through the repeated displacement of the population, including 1 million people who were displaced in May 2024 as part of Israel\u2019s incursion into Rafah, without providing or facilitating access to water in the areas where they were told to evacuate.\u00a0Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention requires that parties to a conflict adhere to humanitarian standards when evacuating a population, including carrying out removals in \u201csatisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition.\u201dOn May 18, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini stated, \u201c[t]he areas that people are fleeing to now do not have safe water supplies or sanitation facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n The third set of provisional measures by the ICJ found that \u201cIsrael has not provided sufficient information concerning \u2026 the availability in the al-Mawasi area [where civilians from Rafah were ordered to evacuate] of water, sanitation, food, medicine and shelter.\u201d<\/p>\n An employee of the CMWU told Human Rights Watch on May 30, 2024, \u201c[u]nfortunately the situation is only getting more terrible. I don’t know how [anyone] can say that the situation is improving. How could the situation be improving if the whole population is gathered in one area\u2026 on the beach side and in the middle area governorates\u2026 [where they] can’t find water to wash themselves or to drink.\u201d<\/p>\n Human Rights Watch has previously found that Israeli authorities\u2019 displacement of the civilian population in Gaza combined with its failure to provide humanitarian safeguards in evacuation areas, and other breaches of article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention amount to multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity of forced displacement.<\/p>\n International humanitarian law (IHL) requires Israel, as the occupying power in Gaza, to provide for the welfare of the occupied population and ensure that the needs of the civilian population are provided for.<\/p>\n IHL also prohibits warring parties from attacking, destroying, removing, or rendering useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population (OIS), including water and sanitation infrastructure. When done deliberately, destruction of OIS may amount to a war crime. In several instances, Israeli forces deliberately targeted water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza, including in areas under their control. Israeli authorities have deliberately cut off electricity supplies and blocked fuel supplies into Gaza, rendering nearly all water and sanitation infrastructure useless. Israeli authorities\u2019 intentional destruction of and rendering useless OIS therefore amounts to a war crime.<\/p>\n Using starvation as a method of warfare by destroying and rendering useless OIS is a war crime. Starvation includes water deprivation.\u00a0Israeli authorities\u2019 and forces\u2019 actions of intentionally destroying and rendering useless water infrastructure essential to the survival of the civilian population in Gaza constitute the use of starvation as a method of warfare by deliberately destroying and rendering useless OIS, amounting to a war crime.<\/p>\n Israeli authorities\u2019 deprivation of water to the population of Gaza is a violation of the right to water and sanitation under international human rights law.<\/p>\n The governing authority over a population, which includes the occupying power, has, under international human rights law, a positive, \u201cimmediate\u201d obligation to protect the population\u2019s right to water and to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.\u00a0Israeli authorities\u2019 actions have violated the rights of Palestinians in Gaza to water and to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.<\/p>\n Extermination is listed as a distinct crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute). Extermination includes \u201cthe intentional infliction of conditions of life,\u00a0inter alia<\/em>, the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population,\u201d\u00a0and includes the following elements: \u201c[t]he perpetrator killed one or more persons, including by inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population; [t]he conduct constituted, or took place as part of, a mass killing of members of a civilian population; [t]he conduct was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population; and [t]he perpetrator knew that the conduct was part of or intended the conduct to be part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.\u201d<\/p>\n Israeli policies have amounted to the intentional creation of conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population of Gaza. Israeli authorities were responsible for the deliberate destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure, the prevention of repairs to damaged water and sanitation infrastructure, and the cutting off or severe restrictions on water, electricity and fuel, which have likely caused thousands of deaths, that is, a mass killing, and will likely continue to cause deaths into the future. As a state policy, these acts constitute a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population. Israeli officials are therefore committing the crime against humanity of extermination.<\/p>\n Genocide is a crime under international law set out in both the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The crime of genocide in international law involves the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such, by killing its members or by causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; or deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; or imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.<\/p>\n Human Rights Watch concludes that Israeli authorities have over the past year intentionally inflicted on the Palestinian population in Gaza \u201cconditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.\u201d This policy, inflicted as part of a mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza means Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, which is ongoing. This policy also amounts to an \u201cact of genocide\u201d under the Genocide Convention of 1948.<\/p>\n The crime of genocide requires acts of genocide to be committed with genocidal intent. The ICJ has said that to infer such intent from a pattern of conduct by the state, it needs to be \u201cthe only reasonable inference to be drawn\u201d from the acts in question.\u00a0The pattern of conduct set out in this report together with statements suggesting some Israeli officials wished to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza may indicate such intent.<\/p>\n Direct and public incitement to genocide is also prohibited under article 3(c) of the Genocide Convention. The combination of certain public statements, including from persons in authority in Israel at the time they made the statements, calling for action that would target access to water and other conditions of life of Palestinians in Gaza; the action that followed the statements, by Israeli authorities in creating the conditions of life that have likely killed thousands of Palestinians; and the ICJ ruling on incitement, indicate that some of the statements have amounted to direct and public incitement to genocide. Israeli authorities are under a duty, as the ICJ ruled, to take all measures to prevent and punish such incitement.<\/p>\n These violations of international law entail both state responsibility and individual criminal liability of Israeli officials.<\/p>\n The Israeli government should immediately comply with the provisional measures ordered by the ICJ. It should cease its unlawful destruction of water infrastructure across Gaza and unlawful attacks on personnel and equipment needed for repairs. It should immediately lift its blockade of Gaza, restore water and electricity access, and allow desperately needed water, food, medical aid, and fuel in, including via all land crossings.\u00a0The Israeli government should also immediately allow for and facilitate urgently-needed repairs to damaged water infrastructure.<\/p>\n States and international institutions, and especially those with leverage on the Israeli government such as the United States, the United Kingdom and European Union states, should take urgent action to prevent genocide and further atrocities. This includes measures like targeted sanctions, suspension of arms transfers and military assistance, and review of bilateral trade and political agreements, to put concrete pressure on the Israeli government to comply with the ICJ\u2019s provisional measures and its other obligations under IHL and human rights law.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a non-United Nations document. The United Nations provides these documents only as a convenience for reference purposes, and the inclusion of a document does not imply the endorsement of its content by the United Nations. 19 December 2024 \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a\u0629 Summary Since October 2023, Israeli authorities have deliberately obstructed Palestinians\u2019 access to the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[6994,1323],"document-source":[2749],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1769,5358,5811,2005,6790,1741,6245,2273],"entity":[2077],"document-language":[6544,6542],"class_list":["post-314053","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-non-un-document","document-category-report","document-source-human-rights-watch","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-ClosuresCurfewsBlockades","document-subject-convention-genocide","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-genocide","document-subject-human-rights-and-international-humanitarian-law","document-subject-violence","document-subject-water","entity-non-governmental-organization","document-language-arabic","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/314053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/314053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314094,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/314053\/revisions\/314094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=314053"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=314053"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=314053"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=314053"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=314053"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=314053"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=314053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Water Deprivation as a Deliberate Act<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Cutting off and Restricting Water, Electricity, and Fuel<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Blocking Water-Related Aid<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Destruction of Water Infrastructure and Obstruction of Repairs<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Obstruction of Repairs and Aid and Attacks on Water Workers<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Illness and Death from Deprivation of Water and Sanitation<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Devastating Impacts for Infants, Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women, and People with Disabilities<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Underreporting of Deaths, Disease Caused by Denial of Access to Water<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Destruction of Health Infrastructure, Housing, Agriculture, and Forced Displacement<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Violations of International Law<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Key Recommendations<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Recommendations<\/strong><\/h2>\n
To the Israeli Authorities<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
To All States<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
To the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
To the International Criminal Court Prosecutor<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n