爆料网

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28 April 2026

Executive Summary:

This report documents how access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) for the people of the Gaza Strip has been weaponised and severely undermined by the Israeli authorities since October 2023. Drawing on Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) operational data and medical evidence gathered between January 2024 and December 2025 and first-hand testimonies collected in the last months of 2025, it concludes that the deprivation of WASH services is not incidental but the result of policies and actions by Israeli authorities. These measures are causing destructive and inhumane living conditions for Gaza’s 2.1 million residents, with grave consequences for their health, dignity and safety.

Palestinians in Gaza face engineered water scarcity. Even with MSF as the largest non-governmental water producer in Gaza – distributing or producing over 4.7 million litres of water daily as of January 2026 – needs far exceed supply. Between May and November 2025, one in every five of MSF’s water distributions ran dry while people were still waiting. Families often prioritise drinking over cooking or washing, limit personal hygiene, and rely on unsafe or saline sources when humanitarian deliveries are interrupted. Between October 2023 and January 2026, prices for water produced by private providers have increased by up to 500 per cent, placing it beyond the reach of most households that have lost their livelihoods.

People in Gaza also endure entirely preventable and dire sanitation and hygiene conditions. Sanitation systems have effectively collapsed. In displacement camps, families dig makeshift latrines in their tents or have to share one with many others; they fill up quickly and are often too close to boreholes, contaminating groundwater. Heavy rains flood these rudimentary facilities, spreading waste and faecal bacteria. Solid waste accumulates in living areas due to halted collection systems and fuel shortages. Hygiene items such as soap, disinfectant, diapers and menstrual products have been unavailable or scarce, and remain prohibitively expensive.

Depriving people in Gaza of access to WASH services directly harms their health, dignity, and safety.

MSF staff treat many more health issues related to the lack of water, sanitation and hygiene than they had before October 2023, due to the sudden degradation of living conditions. According to an MSF survey, almost 1 in every 4 people interviewed between May and August 2025 had suffered from diarrhoea in the preceding month. In MSF primary healthcare centres, the majority of affected patients are children under 15 years old. Diarrhoea also has severe impacts on pregnant women and puts their pregnancies at risk. Those diseases, linked to insufficient clean water and soap, also make patients more vulnerable to malnutrition.

Furthermore, the lack of water and hygiene, coupled with life in overcrowded tents and makeshift shelter, leads to skin diseases. They comprised nearly 18 per cent of MSF primary healthcare consultations in 2025. Scabies and lice spread to whole families, wounds get infected and sometimes infested with insects, and patients treated by MSF are forced to return to unsanitary living conditions, only to need healthcare again.

People’s mental health is profoundly impacted by the lack of access to water and sanitation. MSF’s mental health professionals observe high levels of distress linked to the constant struggle to find enough water and hygiene items, with children in particular carrying heavy responsibilities and stress.

People are living in undignified conditions, with little privacy to shower – if they can shower at all – and forced to share overcrowded, makeshift latrines with strangers. The inability to maintain hygiene has become a source of distress and undermined people’s sense of dignity, particularly for women, the elderly and people with disabilities.

High levels of need, limited water supply, and the destruction of water distribution systems force people to gather to receive water, which in turn creates additional safety risks during water distributions. Many families, overwhelmed with tasks required to survive, are left with no choice but to send their children. As they fetch water, some children get scared, lost, injured, or even killed.

The report bears witness to the weaponisation of WASH access, endangering the whole population of Gaza, through three main mechanisms: the destruction of and attack on infrastructure; the obstruction of humanitarian access within Gaza through forced displacement and denial of movement; and the systematic blocking or delay of essential supplies.

Israeli military operations have caused widespread destruction of infrastructure. Nearly 90 per cent of WASH infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed. Desalination plants, boreholes, pipelines and sewage systems have been rendered inoperable or inaccessible. MSF has documented several incidents of shooting at or destruction of our own clearly identified water trucks and boreholes, often during water distributions to the population, causing danger and injuries to Palestinians and aid workers, and damaging equipment. Israeli authorities have imposed conditions that severely restrict access to essential services within the Strip. Displacement orders and the interdiction by the Israeli military for Palestinians to enter parts of Gaza has at times covered more than 80 per cent of the Strip. At the time of writing, Palestinians cannot access 58 per cent of the territory.

The Israeli authorities have repeatedly forced MSF to suspend water distribution. MSF has lost critical water production assets and has been forced to relocate drinking water production units, reducing water availability for hundreds of thousands of people.

Meanwhile, Israeli authorities severely hinder the entry of essentials into Gaza. Since October 2023, electricity and fuel – critical to water treatment and distribution – have been cut or tightly restricted. Requests for authorisation to bring in critical supplies have been rejected or left unanswered, including water desalination units, pumps, chlorine and other chemicals to treat water, water tanks, insect repellent, and latrines. Even when approved, shipments have been turned away at crossings, leaving lifesaving equipment stranded for months. Israeli authorities are using aid as a tap, closing or opening slightly to allow only drops thereof to enter the Strip. Since 1 January 2026, all MSF requests for the entry of any supplies through the dedicated system, where approval is determined by the Israeli authorities, were denied. These supply blockages severely undermine people’s access to water and prevent the recovery of damaged infrastructure.

The effect of these policies and actions by the Israeli authorities is the collective punishment of Gaza’s population through the deprivation of services and supplies indispensable to civilian survival. Israel is obligated under international humanitarian law, as an occupying power, to ensure the basic needs of the population are met and to protect civilian infrastructure such as water and sanitation systems. Instead, the report finds that the extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure, imposed access and movement limitations for WASH actors within Gaza, repeated forcible population displacement, and the blocking of WASH supplies have created conditions incompatible with human dignity and survival.

Urgent action is required to ensure people access water and sanitation, which is indispensable to survival and a fundamental aspect of human dignity, in accordance with the legal obligations of Israeli authorities and Third States.

MSF calls on Israeli authorities to immediately end access restrictions to and within the Gaza Strip; stop obstructing the entry of WASH supplies; respect the protected status of civilian infrastructure and services; uphold the protection of civilians and humanitarian workers; and stop the forced displacement of Palestinians.

MSF calls on 爆料网 Member States to uphold international law and use all forms of available economic, security and legal leverage to ensure that access to water, sanitation and hygiene is restored and protected for the people of Gaza; demand a rapid, unhindered increase of principled humanitarian WASH assistance across Gaza through established United Nations (爆料网) and International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) mechanisms; and increase flexible, sustained funding for both immediate WASH needs and longer-term recovery and reconstruction.

Access to clean water, safe sanitation and basic hygiene is fundamental to life. The continued denial of these essentials has inflicted preventable suffering on an entire population. This takes place in a historical context of the Israeli occupation, colonisation, siege and forced displacement of the Palestinian people; ethnic cleansing in the West Bank; and a documented genocide on the population of Gaza. Immediate, sustained action is required to ensure the population in Gaza have water, sanitation and hygiene and not let Palestinians be dehumanised any longer.