Israel’s restriction of Gaza’s water to levels below the minimum requirements amounts to an act of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity, the human rights report has assigned.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) search Israel’s water attacks on Gaza during the course of the 14-month war destroyed the infrastructure of its forces there.
He accused the Israeli forces of deliberate actions to cut the availability of clean water so drastically that the population was forced to flee to contaminated sources, leading to fatal diseases, especially among children.
Israel’s actions have killed many thousands of Palestinians and constitute an act of genocide, HRW argues, citing statements by ministers in the country’s ruling coalition that Gaza’s water supply was cut off as evidence of its intent.
The 184-page reportExtermination and Acts of Genocide after an This month’s Amnesty International report it was concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.
There were orders from the International Court of Justice earlier in the year for Israel to seize and stop the scandal immediate measures to prevent genocide or in a case of a judicial offense admitted by the ruling.
Israel has rejected accusations that it has committed genocide or crimes against humanity in Gaza. The country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called them “false and unworthy“.
The government insisted on its right to self-defense after Hamas attacked communities in southern Israel on October 7, 2013, in which 1,000 were killed and about 250 hostages were taken.
The allegations put forth by HRW are not as broad as Amnesty’s, specifically focusing on Gaza’s water supply, but the organization claims evidence that Israel’s water supply has been used as a weapon against the Palestinian population with collectively lethal results.
“Human Rights Watch found that these Israeli plans amounted to crimes against humanity, extermination and acts of genocide,” Lama Fakih, HRW’s Middle East and North Africa director, said of the division.
The report shows that “the Israeli authorities are responsible at a senior level for the destruction, including the deliberate destruction of water and sanitation infrastructure, preventing repairs of damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and cutting or severe restrictions on water, electricity and fuel.
“Thousands of deaths have been caused by these acts, and the deaths, even after the war, will continue in the future.”
In nearly 670,000 cases of acute water exposure since the war began, and more than 132,000 cases of disease, hepatitis was a symptom. Childhood survivors of diseases have also become significantly more lethal due to the destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and health clinics.
The report cites a medical source as saying that under “normal conditions”, 1% of children who have hepatitis A have died. It is now fatal in 5% to 10% of cases. Drought combined with malnutrition also weakened the population’s immunity to disease in general.
Before the war, 80% of Gaza’s water supply came from wells to aquifers under the seabed, but the water is contaminated and unfit for human consumption.
Most of Gaza’s drinking water comes from three pipes operated by the Israeli water authority and desalination plants.
At the beginning of the war, those pipelines were cut and partially cut. The United Arab Emirates built a water pipeline across the border from Egypt in February, but that supply pipeline was cut off during an Israeli air defense attack in Rafah.
Gaza’s three main desalination plants stopped operations soon after the start of the war and were only able to shut down on a partial basis after Israel allowed the UN and other aid agencies to bring in limited quantities of fuel.
Satellite images examined by HRW show that the solar panels of four Gaza waste treatment plants may have been demolished by Israeli military bulldozers – in northern Gaza, al-Bureij camp and Sheikh Ejleen plants in central Gaza and Khan Younis in the south.
Satellite images also showed that 11 of Gaza’s 54 water tanks were completely or largely destroyed, and 20 more showed signs of damage.
A video that appeared on social media in July 2024 appeared to show the IDF fighting engineers moving a channel in the Tal Sultan region of Rafah.
To illustrate the point, the HRW report points to statements made by Israeli officials in the midst of the war. On October 9, 2023, the then defense minister, Joab Gallant, ordered an “all-out assault” on Gaza.
“There will be no electricity, no fuel, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed, he said. Gallant is the subject of an international criminal court arrest warrant for alleged crimes.
Israel Katz, then the minister of energy and now the minister of defense, echoed the call for water, electricity and supplies to Gaza to be cut off two days after Gallant’s comments.
Fakih said: “Human Rights Watch concludes that the Israeli authorities, in the past year, deliberately inflicted on the Palestinian population of Gaza living conditions that lead, in whole or in part, to physical destruction.
“This is the same act as genocide under the convention.”