[News] Israel's Deliberate Obstruction of Water in Gaza Amounts to ‘Genocide’ - Human Rights Watch

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Israel's Deliberate Obstruction of Water in Gaza Amounts to ‘Genocide’ -
Human Rights WatchDecember 19, 2024
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Palestinian women line for water in the overcrowded displacement camp in
Rafah. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)

*By Palestine Chronicle Staff
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/palestine-chronicle-staff>*

“Israeli authorities have over the past year intentionally inflicted on the
Palestinian population in Gaza ‘conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part.’”

A new Human Rights Watch report has concluded that Israel’s deliberate
obstruction of the Palestinian population’s access to water in Gaza amounts
to an “act of genocide.”

Published on Thursday, the report
<https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/12/19/extermination-and-acts-genocide/israel-deliberately-depriving-palestinians-gaza>
cites figures by the World Health Organization (WHO) that indicate that a
person needs between 50 and 100 liters of water per day to ensure that
their “most basic needs are met.” 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’ 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,” said the HRW report.
Sea Water Consumed

For many in Gaza, much or all of the water they have had access to is not
suitable for drinking.

“If we can’t find drinkable water, we drink the sea water,” one father
displaced to a school in Rafah told HRW in December 2023.

The rights organization interviewed 66 Palestinians in Gaza between October
18, 2023, and July 23, 2024, who described “the near-impossibility of
securing water for themselves and their families.”
Infrastructure Destroyed

HRW also spoke to four of Gaza’s 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’ actions that have deprived
Palestinians in Gaza of water, as well as the devastating health impacts,
including death.”

For the report, HRW also analyzed satellite imagery and verified
photographs and videos captured between “the beginning of the hostilities
and August 2024.”

“These show extensive damage
<https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/12/19/extermination-and-acts-genocide/israel-deliberately-depriving-palestinians-gaza#_ftn8>
and destruction to water and sanitation infrastructure, including the
apparently deliberate, systematic razing of the solar panels powering four
of Gaza’s six wastewater treatment plants by Israeli ground forces, as well
as Israeli soldiers filming themselves demolishing a key water reservoir,”
the report said.
Clear Intention

HRW noted that 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 “a
complete siege” on Gaza, stating “[t]here will be no electricity, no food,
no water, no fuel, everything is closed.”

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, said
the report.

“Since then, Israeli authorities and military forces have matched these
statements with actions,” HRW stressed.
UN, Aid Agencies Blocked

The report said Israeli 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,” it said. This
included 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.”
ICJ Rulings

The report highlighted the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ)
provisional measures issued on January 26, 2024, 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.

At the time, the ICJ determined that “many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
have no access to the most basic foodstuffs, potable water, electricity,
essential medicines or heating.”

Since then, the ICJ has issued two further provisional measures,
reaffirming its prior orders, and stated in May that the orders should be
“immediately and effectively implemented,” the report noted.

However, Israel has since that time violated the ICJ’s measures, including
preventing “the deprivation of access to adequate food and water.”
‘War Crime’

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,
according to the HRW report.

When done deliberately, the destruction of objects indispensable to the
survival of the civilian population (OIS), including water and sanitation
infrastructure, “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,
the report noted. Israeli authorities have “deliberately cut off
electricity supplies and blocked fuel supplies into Gaza, rendering nearly
all water and sanitation infrastructure useless.”

“Israeli authorities’ intentional destruction of and rendering useless OIS
therefore amounts to a war crime,” said the HRW report.

“Using starvation as a method of warfare by destroying and rendering
useless OIS is a war crime. Starvation includes water deprivation,” the
report added.
Use of Starvation

“Israeli authorities’ and forces’ 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,” it noted.

HRW concluded that “Israeli authorities have over the past year
intentionally inflicted on the Palestinian population in Gaza ‘conditions
of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in
part.’”

“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,” the report said.

“This policy also amounts to an ‘act of genocide’ under the Genocide
Convention of 1948,” it added.

*(The Palestine Chronicle)*
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