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Each Tuesday, at exactly 8 a.m., Abo Watan Al-Shararha’s mornings are marked by the distant sirens of humanitarian water trucks. The 39-year-old, who struggles to provide for his family of five, must carry empty jerrycans and venture through the rubble of his neighborhood in al-Zawaida, hoping he will make it to the trucks before the drinking water runs out.
For Al-Shararha, whose name references the Arabic word for “homeland,” home is where he can live with dignity and safety, without battling for life’s most basic necessities. Displaced six times during the genocide, he has reached what he hopes will be his latest refuge.
“But getting water is a matter of luck,” he told Truthout. “Sometimes I manage to fill my containers. Many other times the water runs out before my turn, leaving desperate people who have queued for hours parched and empty-handed. Other times I see the endless line and give up. And sometimes fights erupt over the remaining water, so I am forced to avoid the battle.”
When that happens, Al-Shararha has no choice but to buy water, despite its soaring prices.
“I used to work as a freelancer before the genocide,” Al-Shararha lamented. “We lived a humble life in a residential tower where tap water was available around the clock.”
Before the genocide, Gaza relied on three main water resources: three seawater desalination plants, providing around 7 percent of the Strip’s drinking water; three pipelines operated by the Israeli water company Mekorot, accounting for nearly 13 percent of Gaza’s drinking water; and a network of around 300 municipal wells tapping the Coastal Aquifer for desalination. Alongside them, three wastewater treatment plants recycled treated wastewater, primarily for agricultural use.
The director of the desalination plant in the Central Governorate of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, Dr. Muhammad Al-Abwini, told Truthout that, before October 7, 2023, the average share of water per person reached around 80 liters per day, including both domestic and drinking water.
“Although it was still far below the World Health Organization’s recommended [optimal] liters per person per day, it was a milestone for us. It was a breakthrough, given Gaza’s longstanding status quo,” he said.
Despite these achievements, a UN report released in 2018 warned that the water produced in Gaza was unfit for human consumption and that, unless urgent action was taken, the crisis would have disastrous consequences, rendering Gaza uninhabitable by 2020.
Al-Abwini explained that Gaza’s water insecurity largely stems from its geographical location along the coast. Seawater continuously leaks into the Coastal Aquifer, increasing the concentration of total dissolved salts and rendering much of the groundwater unfit for drinking.
“From there, several master plans were proposed to improve both the quality and quantity of water,” Al-Abwini said.
Yet since the first days of genocide, Israel has weaponized water, turning it into a tool of mass suffering. The Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered the cutoff of water supplies to Gaza just days after October 7.
Then the systematic destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure followed. According to a report by Médecins Sans Frontières released in April 2026, about 90 percent of water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed. Wastewater treatment plants have been put out of service, leaving sewage overflowing across displacement camps, while Gaza’s largest functioning desalination plants have been decimated.
Speaking in a weary voice, Al-Abwini told Truthout, “The Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) system has been reduced to ashes. Before the genocide, it was designed with remarkable precision, taking into account both Gaza’s geography and its population density. Yet now, people are crammed into the so-called safe zones and al-Mawasi, which was originally designated for agricultural purposes rather than human settlement. That has further deepened the crisis.”
The ordeal extended far beyond the destruction of infrastructure and the deliberate killing of municipal staff. Engineers and water utility staff struggled to keep the plants functioning, but the complete blackout across Gaza hampered any attempt to revive its Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene system.
Al-Abwini elaborated, “Generators in Gaza were originally intended to operate for only a few hours a day. Today, however, the water sector relies on them almost entirely.”
Yet severe fuel shortages have forced many facilities to shut down. Israel’s restrictions on essential equipment, along with its ban on spare parts under the pretext of “dual use,” have further hindered efforts to restore the water system.
“The desalination plant has been plagued by technical failures … forcing us to run the plant manually,” Al-Abwini said. Damage to critical components reduced “production capacity from 2,500 cubic meters to just 1,200. We spent six months pleading with international organizations to facilitate its entry before it was finally allowed in.”
Even beyond the severe restrictions on fuel, tight restrictions remain on both the power capacity and the type of generators allowed into Gaza.
Al-Abwini condemned the policy, saying, “The generator required to operate our desalination plant has a capacity of 1,600 kilowatts. Yet the only generators allowed to enter Gaza — if they are allowed at all — have a capacity of 30 kilowatts or less.”
Lubricating oil, an essential component for operating and maintaining machinery, has also been barred from entering Gaza.
“If we have a generator, we don’t have the oil to run it. And even when we do, the generator is now operating nearly four times beyond its intended workload, yet the lubricating oil is never changed.”
He put it plainly: “This is not a heroic act. This is a slow death for the generators and the gradual dismantling of the entire system. It’s a closed, hollow circle of suffering.”
All these factors combined have paved the way for a humanitarian crisis. According to a May 2026 report from Oxfam, “By early 2026, the United Nations estimated that drinking water availability in Gaza City had fallen below six litres per person per day, well below even emergency humanitarian standards.”
Dr. Al-Abwini proudly said, “Despite the unprecedented challenges, we managed to improve the quantity, reaching 20 liters per person per day for both drinking and domestic use. We considered it as us having had smashed the target, yet it is still far too little compared with the immense need on the ground. Before the genocide, people received 80 liters of water in their homes, with dignity. Today, 20 liters is the best we can offer, and even that reaches people through an exhausting and undignified process.”
Many families have resorted to compensating for the shortages by retrieving water from small private wells or relying on turning brackish water into potable water.
For Abo Ahmed Abo Ghatrous, a 52-year-old unemployed father of seven, domestic water has not reached him for almost a month and a half.
“My suffering to get domestic water far exceeds my struggle to find drinking water,” he told Truthout. “I have been displaced from Rafah for the third year in a row and now live in a tent pitched on agricultural land. I have to buy gallons of water for between two and four shekels each, nearly one dollar per gallon. We need more than seven gallons every day for bathing and cleaning. That means spending more than $200 every month just to meet our basic water needs. And that’s on top of the skyrocketing prices of the containers.”
Speaking in a broken voice, he said, “I can’t take it anymore. What should we do? Where should we go? Life has become unbearable, and the situation grows worse day by day.”
The water crisis has also profoundly affected Gaza’s social fabric.
“It’s a battle for survival,” Abo Ghatrous added. “Any aggressive reaction is understandable. We need water to live.”
Yet he also recalled how he and his neighbors continue to share what little water they have with one another.
On the other hand, Al-Shararha stressed that disputes over water can quickly turn violent. “People have been shot over a single gallon of water,” he said.
Back in 2024, an analytical study released by Euro-Med Monitor found that 66 percent of the sample reported severe diarrhea, intestinal diseases, skin rashes, scabies, and vomiting. Each passing additional day of water insecurity and pollution jeopardizes the health of an already immunocompromised population in Gaza.
That is a predictable consequence, given the deteriorating hygiene conditions and the collapse of the desalination and wastewater treatment systems. As a result, waterborne pathogens spiral out of control, threatening many lives.
Abo Ghatrous remarked, “My daughters have developed gastroenteritis multiple times. I also underwent a chondrectomy shortly before the genocide, but my recovery was compromised because I had to haul heavy containers of water.”
The crops on the remaining agricultural land that survived the Israeli bombardment may not survive the water shortages.
Abo Ghatrous, who once cared for olive, lemon, pomegranate, and guava trees, is now bidding them a final farewell, accepting their fate.
“We are barely finding water to drink, let alone enough to water the trees. All of them have withered,” he said in distress.
Not surprised, Al-Abwini remarked, “This genocide has ruthlessly killed life itself — the marginalized people, the environment, humans, plants, and dignity. This genocide has pulverized 50 years of tireless work and investment in the environment. To restore the kind of water situation we had before the genocide, we will need at least decades.”
Looking for a sustainable solution as the scorching summer heat continues to rise, Hatem Abo Tahoun, a Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene system engineer with extensive experience working with international NGOs during emergencies, said the lack of materials continues to hinder any meaningful recovery plan.
“We are working in reverse,” he explained. “We first assess what is still usable, then build our plans around it.”
Water trucks continue to fall far short of people’s immense needs and are no longer an effective solution, Abo Tahoun said:
For now, portable reverse osmosis desalination plants distributed across overcrowded and densely populated areas are the ideal solution. To avoid overcrowding around the plants themselves, they should be supported by distribution networks that make water accessible to as many people as possible. Displacement has forced people to replace proper water storage containers with thin, makeshift ones that no longer meet their needs. Many humanitarian organizations are now working to provide families with durable jerrycans and equip desalination plants with water storage tanks. It is a complementary process. Each part depends on the other. The goal is to mitigate these harsh conditions and help people reach the bare minimum needed for survival.
Regarding domestic water, Abo Tahoun explained, “One practical solution is to reactivate old, unused wells to provide water for household and sanitation purposes, then connect them to distribution networks. This, in turn, would reduce the demand for drinking water supplied by the desalination plants.”
As fuel continues to stand as a major roadblock, Abo Tahoun suggested, “If solar panels were allowed to enter at scale, they would completely change the humanitarian situation. Instead of facing a cascade of shortages and operating costs, we could rely on a natural resource — the sun.”
Abo Tahoun added, “Earlier in the genocide, we assessed the needs of the plants and, according to the available budget, distributed fuel to private wells so they could operate and provide water free of charge to marginalized families in the surrounding areas.”
Almost all families are now forced to ration their water use by recycling greywater.
“It’s not an effective solution, but we use it for flushing. My own family does the same,” Abo Tahoun said. “We’re running out of solutions. They are simple solutions that should be easy to implement, but without fuel, materials, and the equipment needed to restore the system, they remain out of reach.”
Given that the so-called reconstruction plan remains little more than ink on paper, Abo Tahoun warned: “We are still in emergency mode. We are simply trying to enhance our people’s resilience and preserve their dignity. Gaza’s future remains uncertain. Everything we are doing is an emergency measure. We cannot address the root cause. All we can do is take a humanitarian approach to keep people from falling into the abyss.”
For Al-Shararha, Abo Ghatrous, Al-Abwini, Abo Tahoun and all Gazan families, the unalienable right to water should never be undermined or weaponized. No one should have to chase the sirens of water trucks, queue for hours, or go to sleep thirsty. Water should never be a luxury. Yet, in Gaza, it has become one.
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