Residents Struggle to Access Clean Water

Zuhair al-Nasr, a 74-year-old resident of Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, walks through the area carrying two water containers, searching for a source to fill them. He says he is unsure where he will find drinking water for his family. For the past week, he has barely managed to fill the containers, relying on groundwater wells instead of the desalinated water he previously accessed.

Zuhair, who lives in a tent after his home in Beit Hanoon was destroyed by Israeli forces, says the newly built desalination plant had made life easier for his large family—13 children and more than 20 grandchildren. For about two months, the plant provided a steady supply of clean water, eliminating the need to carry it over long distances. But on August 24, Israel bombed the facility, destroying it and damaging nearby displacement tents and residential structures.

“We were comfortable,” Zuhair says. “We’re suffering now. The water is the lifeline of our life. For drinking, cooking, washing and bathing.”

Water as a Source of Life

Zuhair describes how the desalination plant had brought a sense of normalcy and cleanliness to the area, encouraging displaced residents to return and resettle. “Where there is water, there is life,” he says. The facility had offered a rare sense of stability for families already displaced by the war.

However, the relief was short-lived. Zuhair says he had hoped the desalination plant would not be targeted during Israeli evacuations. He rejects Israeli claims that the site was being used for purposes other than supplying water, stating that the allegations of a nearby weapons storage facility were false. “Why destroy a place that was providing people with water?” he asks.

Humanitarian Impact of the Destruction

Mohammed Mahmoud, the 53-year-old owner of the destroyed desalination plant, says the facility had been operating for only two months before the attack. It was the only desalination plant serving much of Sheikh Radwan and had been providing free water to 17 shelters and collective centres. Mahmoud estimates his losses at no less than $500,000, with the desalination machinery and equipment alone costing about $250,000.

The plant had been built using equipment and materials that were already difficult and expensive to obtain during the war. The destruction came as Gaza’s wider drinking-water crisis was already deepening. A survey cited by the United Nations found that 90 percent of Gaza’s population experienced frequent and unpredictable disruptions in access to safe, clean, and reliable water in early July. In Gaza City, the figure was even higher, at 92 percent.

By the end of July, about 75 percent of Gaza’s population continued to rely on water provided by trucks as their primary source of drinking water, with humanitarian partners delivering more than 20,000 cubic metres a day to thousands of collection points. Yet even that system is struggling to meet demand. UNICEF reported in August that up to 63 percent of people were unable to collect the minimum six litres (1.5 gallons) of water per person per day recommended for drinking and cooking.

Nada Arouqi, a 36-year-old mother of four in the Mukhabrat area of northwest Gaza City, says water trucks often only reach her neighbourhood two days a week and sometimes do not come for an entire week. When a truck arrives, she fills six containers and carries them back to where her family lives. There is no separate supply for bathing or cleaning, leaving the family dependent on the same water for drinking and other daily needs.

When the water does not come, Nada has to buy drinking water, an expense her family can barely afford. Her mother-in-law, 60-year-old Maryam Arouqi, who lives in the same displacement tent, describes another consequence of the shortage: the physical toll of bringing water home. She says she has to refill a large household barrel three or four times a day because her family depends on it throughout the day. She has no access to a municipal water supply or household groundwater pump.

“I have to carry water,” Maryam says. “My body and bones are collapsing because of this.” She describes tendon injuries, problems with her hands, chest pain and high blood pressure, and says she has been advised to stop the strenuous work. But stopping is not an option when water is needed for an entire household. She and her grandchildren keep walking with empty containers, looking for somewhere to fill them.

“Our struggle for water never ends. Who can live without water? Water is life,” she says.