Mariam Zaqout on Palestine’s Water Crisis
Gaza has been without operable water and sanitation infrastructure for almost two years. Efforts to rebuild must be Palestinian-led.
As Israel’s assault on Gaza nears the two-year mark, the enclave’s population of about two million people is facing a devastating water crisis. Israeli bombardment and ground operations have damaged more than 80 percent of Gaza’s water infrastructure, leaving the average person in Gaza with access to only three liters of water each day. The World Health Organization estimates that individuals need 100 liters per day just to meet basic needs.
While the situation in Gaza is now catastrophic, Palestine’s water crisis long predates Israel’s October 2023 invasion. As I covered in previous reporting, a system of what some experts and rights groups call water apartheid has long prevailed, meaning that Israel, as an occupying power, manages water in a way that denies Palestinians fair access. Cutting off water to the enclave and destroying infrastructure are just the latest examples of its weaponization of the vital resource. Earlier interventions have even included rerouting the Jordan River, which flows southward along the Jordan-Palestine border from headwaters in Lebanon and Syria into the Dead Sea.
In this week’s newsletter, I speak to Mariam Zaqout, a water and economics researcher at University College London, about the politics of Palestine’s water crisis, why significant foreign investment has failed to solve the problem, and why any efforts to rebuild Gaza’s infrastructure must be Palestinian-led and informed by past failures.