NEW YORK, May 6, 2025 (WAFA) – A United Nations rapporteur said on Tuesday that cutting off by Israel of drinking water to Gaza was equivalent to dropping a ‘silent but lethal bomb’.
“Cutting off drinking water to the population is equivalent to dropping a terrible silent bomb on them ... silent but lethal,” Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, said in an interview with Anadolu Agency.
He added that the 2.1 million Palestinians trapped in the genocide-stricken Gaza Strip were enduring a critical water crisis, particularly that nearly 70% of the enclave’s water infrastructure had been destroyed by Israeli occupation forces.
He asserted that this left “almost all of the population with either minimal access to water or water that is dangerously contaminated.”
He pointed out that Israel has enforced a near-total blockade on food, water, electricity, and other essentials since October 2023 and denied fuel needed to operate desalination plants and wells, causing the crisis to spiral out of control.
He said Israel’s deliberate destruction of water systems amounts to using water as a weapon.
“Water is being used as a weapon, but not against another army or militia, but against the population,” he said.
“In fact, this is not just in Gaza. Water is a key element of the war strategy and occupation strategy of Israel across the Palestinian territories.”
According to Arrojo-Agudo, Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s water infrastructure have reduced per capita water access to just five liters a day. “A person needs no less than 100 liters per day for a normal dignified life,” he said.
But even that limited supply, he warned, is mostly undrinkable.
“The most serious problem is that much of this scarce water available … is not drinkable due to salinity and fecal contamination,” he said.
The lack of potable water has already triggered a sharp rise in illness, particularly among children.
Citing UNICEF data, Arrojo-Agudo said that cases of diarrhea in children under the age of five jumped from 40,000 to more than 70,000 in just one week in early December 2024.
The threat of epidemics such as dysentery and cholera is intensifying, he warned, while high salt levels in the water are also causing kidney failure and widespread dehydration.
He elaborated that the crisis created by Israel is not restricted to drinking water, but also affects sanitation services, compounding the risks of diseases.
Even before Israel commenced its genocidal aggression on the Strip, its 15-year blockade had prevented Gaza from importing 70% of the materials needed to build or maintain wastewater treatment plants, according to Arrojo-Agudo.
“This blockade led to progressive fecal contamination of the groundwater even before the war. After the outbreak of war, most infrastructure facilities were bombed and destroyed. But even without bombing, cutting electricity prevents the few functioning plants from operating,” he said.
With sewage systems out of service, he explained that raw wastewater now flows directly into the aquifer, contaminating the last remaining underground water reserves.
Highlighting the deliberate nature of the destruction Israel has inflicted on water and sanitation infrastructure, he recalled that soon after the war began, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former ‘Defense’ Minister Yoav Gallant and others declared publicly that they would cut off water, food, and medicine to the population, and they have “fulfilled what they announced.”
He added that in the occupied West Bank, Israel has appropriated 89% of the water from the mountain aquifer, even though only 20% of it originates in Israeli territory.
He continued that Israel has also completely diverted the flow of the Jordan River through its national water carrier and prohibits Palestinians from even approaching its banks.
He pointed out that in its 2008-2009 bombardment of Gaza, Israel destroyed nearly 1,000 water wells and 243 water pumping facilities.
But Arrojo-Agudo said the current assault is without precedent. “This is not a strategy to win a war. This is effectively a weapon, but against the population.”
He described the Strip as a “huge prison, in which people are forced to go here and there and then bombed, so there is no precedent.”
“This will be, unfortunately, a reference for the whole history of humanity as a disaster without any precedent.”
He stressed the need for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Strip and the unimpeded access of humanitarian aid into the Strip for the population to have a much-needed respite.
He also stressed the need for an end not only to the ongoing Israeli genocidal aggression on the Strip, but also to the illegal occupation of the West Bank.
He reiterated the need for opening humanitarian corridors to allow the entry of fuel, water, and medical supplies, while calling on the international community to demonstrate political will to oblige Israel to comply with international humanitarian law and hold it accountable.
K.F.
