Israel exploiting access to drinking water as ‘weapon’ in war-ravaged Gaza: MSF

An international and independent medical charity says Israeli authorities are systematically depriving the Palestinian population in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip of the water they need to survive, condemning a campaign of “collective punishment” against residents of the coastal region.

Doctors Without Borders, which goes by its French acronym MSF, said in a Tuesday report entitled “Water as a Weapon” that the extensive destruction of civilian water infrastructure in Gaza, coupled with obstruction of access, constitutes “an integral part of Israel’s genocide.”

The Geneva-based charity noted that the “engineered scarcity” was occurring alongside “direct killing of civilians, the devastation of health facilities, (and) the destruction of homes.”

The report, based on testimonies and data that the MSF collected in 2024 and 2025, warned that this amounted to “the deliberate infliction of destructive and inhumane conditions of life on the Palestinian population in Gaza.”

“Israeli authorities know that without water, life ends,” MSF emergency manager Claire San Filippo said in a statement.

“Yet they have deliberately and systematically obliterated water infrastructure in Gaza, whilst consistently blocking water-related supplies from entering.”

The MSF report shed light on data from the United Nations, the European Union, and the World Bank showing that Israel had destroyed or damaged nearly 90 percent of water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza.

“Desalination plants, boreholes, pipelines, and sewage systems have been rendered inoperable or inaccessible,” it said.

The charity documented several incidents where its clearly identified water trucks and boreholes had been shot at or destroyed.

“Palestinians have been injured and killed simply trying to access water,” San Filippo said.

The MSF further said that besides the local authorities, it was the largest producer and main distributor of drinking water in Gaza.

Last month, the charity provided more than 5.3 million liters of water each day, which meets the minimum needs of more than 407,000 people, or a fifth of Gaza’s population.

However, throughout the genocidal war, “Israeli military displacement orders have locked our teams out of areas where we had provided water to hundreds of thousands of people,” the MSF statement said.

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The medical organization said a third of its requests to bring in critical water and sanitation supplies, including water desalination units, pumps, water tanks, insect repellent, chlorine, and other chemicals to treat water, had “been rejected or left unanswered.”

San Filippo also cautioned that the deprivation of water, “combined with dire living conditions, extreme overcrowding, and a collapsed health system, creates a perfect storm for the spread of diseases.”

The MSF called on Israel to “immediately restore water for people at the required levels in Gaza.”

It also urged Western powers to “use their leverage to pressure Israel to stop impeding humanitarian access.”

Despite a ceasefire that took effect in October, at least 786 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, according to Gaza’s health ministry. At least 32 of those deaths were in this month alone.

The Israeli regime has also violated the ceasefire agreement by restricting the entry of agreed quantities of food, medicine, medical supplies, and shelter materials into Gaza, where about 2.4 million Palestinians, including 1.5 million displaced, are living in desperate conditions.

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