In the relentless August heat of Gaza, the simple act of finding water has become a daily ordeal for families like that of Rana Odeh. At dawn, Odeh joins a long line in the sprawling Muwasi displacement camp, clutching an empty jug and steeling herself for another hour under the blazing sun. By the time she returns to her tent, sweat-soaked and exhausted, she faces an agonizing decision: how to ration the small amount of murky water she has managed to collect for her two young children. "We are forced to give it to our children because we have no alternative," Odeh told The Globe and Mail, her voice edged with both resignation and worry. "It causes diseases for us and our children."
Scenes like these have become the grim routine across Gaza, where a water crisis that has simmered for years has now reached breaking point. Since Israel launched its offensive 22 months ago, Gaza's access to clean water has been progressively strangled by damaged infrastructure, restrictions on fuel and electricity, and the relentless destruction of wells and pipelines. As reported by The Associated Press and Devdiscourse, families crowd around sporadic water truck deliveries every two or three days, filling whatever containers they can—sometimes even resorting to hauling water home on donkey-drawn carts. When the trucks don't come, some, like Odeh and her son, are forced to fill bottles from the sea, risking further health complications.
Gaza's water once came from a patchwork of sources: piped in by Israel's national utility Mekorot, processed in local desalination plants, drawn from wells, or imported in bottles. But every one of these lifelines has been compromised. According to UNICEF, only 137 of Gaza's 392 wells remain accessible, their water often fouled by untreated sewage, bombed building debris, and the residue of spent munitions. Desalination plants, crippled by fuel shortages and direct strikes, run far below capacity—or not at all. Infrastructure bottlenecks and pipeline destruction have reduced water delivery to a trickle, and the aquifers themselves have become hazardous, polluted by sewage and the wreckage of war.
The consequences have been devastating. UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, now records an average of 10,300 patients each week at its health centers suffering from infections, predominantly diarrhea linked to contaminated water. The numbers are stark: in February 2025, acute watery diarrhea made up less than 20% of reported illnesses in Gaza; by July, it had surged to 44%, raising the risk of severe dehydration, especially among children. "Untreated sewage mixes with drinking water, and you drink that or wash your food with it, then you’re drinking microbes and can get dysentery," explained Mark Zeitoun, director general of the Geneva Water Hub, in an interview with The Globe and Mail. "If you’re forced to drink salty, brackish water, it just does your kidneys in, and then you’re on dialysis for decades."
Surviving Gaza's summer has only grown more difficult as a heatwave grips the region, with temperatures soaring to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). For Mahmoud al-Dibs, another displaced resident in Muwasi, the oppressive heat and lack of clean water are inescapable. "Outside the tents it is hot and inside the tents it is hot, so we are forced to drink this water wherever we go," al-Dibs told AP. Even those lucky enough to have rooftop tanks find their water yellow and unsafe, as Bushra Khalidi of Oxfam noted, because they cannot spare enough water to clean them.
Today, more than half of Gaza’s water comes from groundwater, with a growing reliance on brackish wells that were once used only for cleaning or irrigation. Now, desperate families are forced to drink this water, despite knowing the risks. The average supply has plummeted to less than three liters per person per day—a fraction of the 15 liters that humanitarian groups say is the bare minimum for drinking, cooking, and hygiene. The situation is so dire that, as Monther Shoblaq, head of Gaza’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, told AP, he has been forced to make impossible choices: prioritizing hospitals for water supply at the expense of sewage treatment, which in turn leads to neighborhood backups and further health hazards.
Efforts to ease the crisis are underway, but progress is slow and precarious. In recent weeks, Israel has taken some steps to restore water access, delivering water via two of Mekorot’s three pipelines into Gaza and reconnecting one desalination plant to the Israeli electricity grid. Yet, as Shoblaq warned, the plants are still producing far less than before the war, and the risk of further disruption remains high. Aid workers and residents alike are pinning hopes on a United Arab Emirates-funded desalination plant just across the border in Egypt, which could start delivering water to southern Gaza in the coming weeks. However, since Israel controls the crossings into Gaza, it will ultimately decide when and how much water is allowed in.
Even these glimmers of hope are overshadowed by the threat of renewed conflict. Aid groups caution that access to water and other humanitarian aid could be disrupted again if Israel launches new offensives in areas like Gaza City and Muwasi, where much of the population has now gathered. The prospect of further violence leaves families anxious and uncertain, never knowing when the next delivery might come or if it will be enough.
In the meantime, the people of Gaza endure. In Muwasi, families line up for hours, sometimes in vain, waiting for the arrival of water trucks. Each drop is carefully rationed: some for drinking, some for cooking, some for cleaning, and what little remains is saved for tomorrow—or for the next emergency. Hosni Shaheen, another resident displaced from Khan Younis, summed up the prevailing sense of dread: "It causes stomach cramps for adults and children, without exception. You don’t feel safe when your children drink it."
For now, Gaza's water crisis remains a daily struggle, woven into every aspect of life. The thirst is unrelenting, the risks are ever-present, and the hope for relief is tempered by the realities of war and politics. Yet, even under such dire circumstances, families like Odeh’s persevere, making do with whatever they can find—because, as Shoblaq put it, "It’s obvious that you can survive for some days without food, but not without water."
