As famine looms in Gaza after nearly two years of relentless conflict, aid agencies are warning of an equally critical but less visible emergency: water scarcity. With much of the territory’s infrastructure destroyed, hundreds of thousands of Gazans are forced to walk long distances daily through rubble-strewn streets to fetch contaminated water — often only a few litres per person, far below emergency health standards.
While global attention has turned to the threat of starvation, aid organisations such as Oxfam and UNICEF say the collapse of water systems is fueling the spread of preventable diseases like diarrhoea and hepatitis. “Starvation and dehydration are no longer side effects of this conflict. They are very much frontline effects,” said UNICEF spokesperson James Elder.
The Israeli military says it has resumed water supplies through two pipelines and allowed equipment in to support water systems. However, Palestinian officials report that those pipelines are largely non-functional, and much of Gaza’s internal water infrastructure has been severely damaged or lacks fuel to operate.
The little water that is available comes from small desalination units or wells that draw from a brackish, contaminated aquifer. On average, Gazans are surviving on just 3–5 litres of water per day — used for drinking, washing, and cooking — compared to Israel’s average of 247 litres, according to rights group B’Tselem.
In the central Gaza Strip, 23-year-old Moaz Mukhaimar pulls handcarts of water for his extended family, often making three trips a day. “How long will we have to stay like this?” he asked. His mother, Umm Moaz, said their family of 20 depends on those water hauls for survival.
Children across Gaza now queue for hours, often replacing school with the daily task of collecting water. “They’ve lost their childhood,” said Munther Salem, head of Gaza’s Water and Environment Quality Authority.
A pipeline funded by the United Arab Emirates to bring water from a desalination plant in Egypt is under construction and may serve 600,000 people in southern Gaza, but it will take weeks to be operational. Aid groups say far more is needed to meet the basic needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.
Oxfam’s Bushra Khalidi warned that without a ceasefire and unrestricted aid access, the crisis will only grow. “Otherwise, we will see more people die from the most preventable diseases — and it’s already happening before our eyes.”