Israel’s New Displacement Order Targets Gaza’s Largest Desalination Plant, Escalating Genocide Through Mass Dehydration

Gaza, 22 July 2025 – Israeli forces continue to systematically target Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, particularly vital public service facilities essential to the survival of Palestinians, including water and sanitation systems and desalination plants. For more than a year and a half, Israel has been deliberately using starvation as a method of warfare against Gaza’s population, a systematic policy that has escalated dangerously in recent weeks and aims to physically destroy the population, in whole or in part, fulfilling the definition of the crime of genocide.

Gaza relies on three main sources of water. The first is groundwater, extracted through 300 groundwater wells distributed across the territory (290 operated by municipalities and 10 by UNRWA). The second source consists of three main seawater desalination plants: one located in northern Gaza, which has been entirely non-operational since the beginning of the genocide; and two located in central and southern Gaza, both of which are only partially functional. The third source is water purchased from Israel's national water company, Mekorot, and supplied through three main water lines serving the northern, central, and southern Gaza. Israel controls these lines and opens or shuts them at will.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of 4 July 2025, 80% of Gaza's water and sanitation infrastructure lies within Israel’s designated evacuation zones. This includes 97 out of 121 desalination plants (80%), 52 out of 58 water reservoirs (90%), 302 out of 392 water wells (77%), and 58 out of 70 wastewater pumping stations (83%).

Israel’s blockade on fuel – including the minimum of 12 million liters required every month to operate water wells, sewage treatment facilities, waste collection trucks, and other essential public services – has severely disrupted Gaza’s water and sanitation systems. According to local sources, Israeli forces have also deliberately targeted 112 fresh water distribution points, killing scores of civilians as they waited in line to collect water.

The water crisis worsened further following Israel's new displacement orders issued on Sunday, 20 July 2025, for areas in Deir al-Balah City. This includes the location of Gaza’s central desalination plant – leaving it vulnerable to destruction, damage, or looting. The facility serves central and southern Gaza and, until March 2025, produced approximately 16,000–18,000 cubic meters of water per day with electricity supplied by Israel. On 9 March 2025, Israel cut off the last power line feeding the plant, forcing it to rely on solar energy. As a result, water production plummeted to about 2,500 cubic meters per day.

Engineer Omar Shatat, Deputy Director of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, told Al Mezan that following the recent displacement orders covering the southwestern areas of Deir al-Balah, the South Gaza seawater desalination plant now falls within the declared evacuation zone. The plant currently produces 2,500 to 3,000 cubic meters of desalinated water per day using backup generators. If the Israeli authorities were to resume energy supplies to the plant, its output could reach up to 20,000 cubic meters per day, as it did between November 2024 and March 2025, before Israeli authorities cut the power supply on 9 March 2025.

This plant is currently the largest functioning source of desalinated water in Gaza, supplying over 200,000 displaced and resident civilians with potable water through tanker distribution and limited direct pumping via municipal networks. If reconnected to electricity, it could provide water for around 700,000 people daily. A shutdown would leave only a few smaller desalination plants as alternatives, which are insufficient to meet the needs of residents and displaced people, especially in the Middle Area Governorate, where Mekorot water lines have been disconnected for over five months. The cessation of this last operational desalination plant would trigger a full-scale water catastrophe.

Since the beginning of Israel’s genocide on Gaza in October 2023, 91% of households in Gaza have experienced water insecurity. Sixty-five percent of the population receives only 3–5 liters of water per person per day for drinking and cooking, while the remaining 35% receive less than 15 liters per person per day – the minimum emergency threshold set by the World Health Organization for drinking, cooking, and basic hygiene.

This severe shortfall is the result of widespread infrastructure destruction, a total power blackout that has crippled water pumping systems and related facilities such as reservoirs and pumping stations, caused by severe restrictions on the entry of fuel and materials essential for their operation.

Al Mezan strongly condemns Israel’s continued use of starvation – including the deprivation of water – as a weapon of war against Palestinians in Gaza and to deliberately impose conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as part of its ongoing genocide. This calculated policy is pushing Gaza toward an imminent humanitarian catastrophe that will involve deaths from both hunger and thirst. The unfolding catastrophe results directly from Israel’s systematic destruction of essential infrastructure, the ongoing closure of border crossings, the tightening of its unlawful siege, and the intentional targeting of food and water sources.

Accordingly, Al Mezan calls on the international community to take immediate and decisive action to compel Israel to end its ongoing genocide and to enforce an immediate ceasefire. Israel must be held accountable and compelled to comply with the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures orders. It must also allow the full and unhindered resumption of life-saving humanitarian services – particularly those provided by UN agencies, foremost among them UNRWA. The unlawful siege on Gaza must be lifted, and the uninterrupted entry of humanitarian aid – especially fuel for hospitals, water and sewage treatment plants, waste collection trucks, bakeries, and other essential services – must be guaranteed.