Thirsting for Justice: Diminishing Access to Water in the Gaza Strip

On March 22, the United Nations, its member countries and nongovernmental development organizations observed the 18th annual World Water Day. The yearly commemoration is a day to implement the UN's water-related policies, raise awareness about water issues and take concrete steps toward addressing these issues. Globally, one in five people do not have access to safe drinking water and 40% of the earth's population does not have adequate sanitation. In the Gaza Strip, limited access to drinking water and adequate sanitation have created a humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions. Unlike many areas that struggle with lack of water, the situation in Gaza is a man-made, not a natural, disaster. Israel's siege of Gaza, imposed in 2007, along with the massive damage done during Israel's attack on Gaza during December 2008-January 2009, have made maintenance of water and wastewater treatment plants virtually impossible. Among the results are environmental degradation and a growing health crisis from which no Palestinian of Gaza is immune.

Gaza's main source of drinking water is and always has been the Coastal Aquifer. For centuries, this aquifer provided adequate supplies of clean water to residents living up and down the Mediterranean coast. But, in recent years, Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement have put undue strain on the aquifer. In order to meet their needs, Palestinians are forced to pump water faster than it can be replaced by rainfall or the natural flow of groundwater from the east. When this happens, water from the sea is able to work its way into the aquifer, thus contaminating Gaza's only fresh water source. Today, the UN estimates that 90-95% of Gaza's groundwater is contaminated to the point of being unfit for human consumption. The Gaza Coastal Municipal Water Utility (CMWU) estimates that the segment of the aquifer to which Palestinians have access will be completely depleted of potable water by the year 2014.

Gaza's sanitation crisis might be even more severe. Gaza's wastewater infrastructure consists of three large plants, which have functioned only intermittently since Israel imposed its siege in 2007. Lack of spare parts and the fuel needed to run the plants ensure that each plant runs at only a fraction of its capacity. According to the CMWU, the Gaza City treatment plant, which is the largest of the three, was not operational at all during 2008. Given the fact that Israel's siege of Gaza has not been relaxed since then, it is reasonable to assume that the same can be said for 2009 and 2010. Waste that is not treated at the plants is released, raw, into the sea and low-lying areas in the Gaza Strip, further contaminating the already scarce ground water and causing a host of environmental and humanitarian problems. In 2007, a temporary sewage lagoon near the town of Beit Lahiya overflowed, flooding the town and drowning six.

Until 2007, overcrowding posed the greatest threat to Gaza's water and sanitation systems. In 2001, the CMWU drafted a master plan designed to address the problems directly. In order to ease demand on the Coastal Aquifer, plans were made to build large desalination plants in Gaza that could make contaminated water safe to drink, and to build a pipeline that would deliver fresh water from the much larger reserves in the West Bank. Plans to build three additional wastewater treatment plants were finalized. But Israeli control over West Bank aquifers and regular military incursions into and closures of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military have made the plan impossible to implement. Since 2007, the greatest threat has come from Israel's near-total siege of the Gaza Strip, which does not allow tools and materials necessary for the regular maintenance of the existing infrastructure, fuel for running the plants or chlorine for treating the water to cross the border. After Israel's December 2008-January 2009 attack on Gaza, these needs became exponentially more acute, as much of the already damaged infrastructure was totally destroyed in the bombings.

Today, the people of Gaza have access to roughly half of their recommended daily water allotment, as defined by the United Nations. By means of comparison, Israelis, many of whom also rely on the Coastal Aquifer as their primary source of fresh water, enjoy four times the recommended amount. As a result, Palestinians are far more likely to suffer the health effects of limited access to clean water. According to the World Bank, 26% of all disease and illness in Gaza, including several forms of cancer, are caused by consuming or washing with contaminated water. Experts agree that there are ways to address the crisis, but Israel will have to cooperate if any real progress is to be made. Emergency measures such as small-scale desalinization and the digging of personal wells have been enough to ensure the survival of the people of Gaza until this point, but they do not address, and often compound, the root causes of the crisis. According to Martha Myer of the development organization CARE International, "As the population increases and infrastructure keeps collapsing, we - the international community and Gaza's neighbors - need to be cognizant of the fact that, ecologically, Gaza is simply not sustainable."