Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Prime Minister of Yemen’s Houthi Government Killed in Israeli Strike

2 days ago

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Signs Law Redrawing Congressional Maps

3 days ago

US Air Force will Offer Military Funeral Honors to Slain Capitol Rioter

3 days ago

US Republican Senator Joni Ernst Will Not Run for Re-Election, CBS News Reports

3 days ago

Wall Street Falls as Dell, Nvidia Drive Tech Losses

3 days ago

US Denies Visas to Palestinian Officials Ahead of UN General Assembly

3 days ago

Minneapolis Children Revealed Courage, Absorbed Fear During Church Shooting

4 days ago

Ford Recalls Nearly 500,000 Vehicles Over Brake Fluid Leak

4 days ago

Fresno-Bound Passenger Says Delta Attendant Slapped Him, Seeks $20M

4 days ago
Terrible Thirst Hits Gaza With Polluted Aquifers and Broken Pipelines
Reuters logo
By Reuters
Published 3 weeks ago on
August 10, 2025

A Palestinian boy walks with a container of water amid shortages, in Gaza City Aug. 6, 2025. (Reuters/Mahmoud Issa)

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Weakened by hunger, many Gazans trek across a ruined landscape each day to haul all their drinking and washing water — a painful load that is still far below the levels needed to keep people healthy.

Even as global attention has turned to starvation in Gaza, where after 22 months of a devastating Israeli military campaign a global hunger monitor says a famine scenario is unfolding, the water crisis is just as severe according to aid groups.

A Palestinian girl carries buckets of water amid shortages, in Gaza City Aug. 6, 2025. (Reuters/Mahmoud Issa)

Though some water comes from small desalination units run by aid agencies, most is drawn from wells in a brackish aquifer that has been further polluted by sewage and chemicals seeping through the rubble, spreading diarrhea and hepatitis.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency responsible for coordinating aid in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, says it operates two water pipelines into the Gaza Strip providing millions of liters of water a day.

Palestinian water officials say these have not been working recently.

Israel stopped all water and electricity supply to Gaza early in the war but resumed some supply later though the pipeline network in the territory has been badly damaged.

Most water and sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed and pumps from the aquifer often rely on electricity from small generators – for which fuel is rarely available.

COGAT said the Israeli military has allowed coordination with aid organizations to bring in equipment to maintain water infrastructure throughout the conflict.

Moaz Mukhaimar, aged 23 and a university student before the war, said he has to walk about a kilometer, queuing for two hours, to fetch water. He often goes three times a day, dragging it back to the family tent over bumpy ground on a small metal handcart.

“How long will we have to stay like this?” he asked, pulling two larger canisters of very brackish water to use for cleaning and two smaller ones of cleaner water to drink.

Kids Aren’t Getting Water They Need

His mother, Umm Moaz, 53, said the water he collects is needed for the extended family of 20 people living in their small group of tents in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

“The children keep coming and going and it is hot. They keep wanting to drink. Who knows if tomorrow we will be able to fill up again,” she said.

Their struggle for water is replicated across the tiny, crowded territory where nearly everybody is living in temporary shelters or tents without sewage or hygiene facilities and not enough water to drink, cook and wash as disease spreads.

The United Nations says the minimum emergency level of water consumption per person is 15 liters a day for drinking, cooking, cleaning and washing. Average daily domestic consumption in Israel is 165 liters a day according to the government’s Central Bureau of Statistics.

Bushra Khalidi, humanitarian policy lead for aid agency Oxfam in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories said the average consumption in Gaza now was 3-5 liters a day.

Oxfam said last week that preventable and treatable water-borne diseases were “ripping through Gaza,” with reported rates increasing by almost 150% over the past three months.

Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it provides adequate aid for the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants.

Queues for Water

“Water scarcity is definitely increasing very much each day and people are basically rationing between either they want to use water for drinking or they want to use a lot for hygiene,” said Danish Malik, a global water and sanitation official for the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Merely queuing for water and carrying it now accounts for hours each day for many Gazans, often involving jostling with others for a place in the queue. Scuffles have sometimes broken out, Gazans say.

Collecting water is often the job of children as their parents seek out food or other necessities.

“The children have lost their childhood and become carriers of plastic containers, running behind water vehicles or going far into remote areas to fill them for their families,” said Munther Salem, water resources head at the Gaza Water and Environment Quality Authority.

With water so hard to get, many people living near the beach wash in the sea.

A new water pipeline funded by the United Arab Emirates is planned, to serve 600,000 people in southern Gaza from a desalination plant in Egypt. But it could take several more weeks to be connected.

Much more is needed, aid agencies say. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said the long-term deprivations were becoming deadly. “Starvation and dehydration are no longer side effects of this conflict. They are very much frontline effects.”

Oxfam’s Khalidi said a ceasefire and unfettered access for aid agencies was needed to resolve the crisis.

“Otherwise we will see people dying from the most preventable diseases in Gaza – which is already happening before our eyes.”

(Reporting by Ramadan Abed in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Olivia Le Poidevin in Geneva; writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Fresno County Garnet Fire Grows to 18,748 Acres in Sierra National Forest

DON'T MISS

US Judge Blocks Deportations of Unaccompanied Migrant Children to Guatemala

DON'T MISS

Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet

DON'T MISS

Thousands in Australia March Against Immigration, Government Condemns Rally

DON'T MISS

Trump Says He Will Order Voter ID Requirement for Every Vote

DON'T MISS

Greta Thunberg Joins Flotilla Heading for Gaza With Aid

DON'T MISS

Chicago Mayor Says Police Will Not Aid Federal Troops or Agents

DON'T MISS

Post-War Gaza Plan Sees Relocation of Population, ‘Digital Token’ for Palestinian Land: Washington Post

DON'T MISS

Labor Day Quiz: Do You Know What a Knocker-Upper Is?

DON'T MISS

Bulldogs Check All the Boxes in Runaway Win Over Georgia Southern

UP NEXT

US Judge Blocks Deportations of Unaccompanied Migrant Children to Guatemala

UP NEXT

Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet

UP NEXT

Thousands in Australia March Against Immigration, Government Condemns Rally

UP NEXT

Trump Says He Will Order Voter ID Requirement for Every Vote

UP NEXT

Greta Thunberg Joins Flotilla Heading for Gaza With Aid

UP NEXT

Chicago Mayor Says Police Will Not Aid Federal Troops or Agents

UP NEXT

Post-War Gaza Plan Sees Relocation of Population, ‘Digital Token’ for Palestinian Land: Washington Post

UP NEXT

Labor Day Quiz: Do You Know What a Knocker-Upper Is?

UP NEXT

Bulldogs Check All the Boxes in Runaway Win Over Georgia Southern

UP NEXT

Judge Blocks Pillar of Trump’s Mass Deportation Campaign

Thousands in Australia March Against Immigration, Government Condemns Rally

17 hours ago

Trump Says He Will Order Voter ID Requirement for Every Vote

17 hours ago

Greta Thunberg Joins Flotilla Heading for Gaza With Aid

17 hours ago

Chicago Mayor Says Police Will Not Aid Federal Troops or Agents

17 hours ago

Post-War Gaza Plan Sees Relocation of Population, ‘Digital Token’ for Palestinian Land: Washington Post

17 hours ago

Labor Day Quiz: Do You Know What a Knocker-Upper Is?

17 hours ago

Bulldogs Check All the Boxes in Runaway Win Over Georgia Southern

1 day ago

Judge Blocks Pillar of Trump’s Mass Deportation Campaign

2 days ago

Classic Cars Will Still Need a Smog Test in California After Lawmakers Reject Jay Leno Bill

2 days ago

Visalia Driver Arrested for DUI After Multiple Crashes and Pedestrian Injured

2 days ago

Fresno County Garnet Fire Grows to 18,748 Acres in Sierra National Forest

A lightning-sparked wildfire, the Garnet Fire, in the Sierra National Forest has burned 18,748 acres in Fresno County and remains at 8% cont...

16 hours ago

Photo: USDA - Forest Service Tanker 40 at Fresno Air Attack Base. The Fresno County Garnet Fire in the Sierra National Forest has burned 18,748 acres and is 8% contained as crews make progress on containment lines while bracing for possible thunderstorms early this week. (Sam Wu/USFS)
16 hours ago

Fresno County Garnet Fire Grows to 18,748 Acres in Sierra National Forest

U.S. flag and Judge gavel are seen in this illustration taken, August 6, 2024. (Reuters File)
16 hours ago

US Judge Blocks Deportations of Unaccompanied Migrant Children to Guatemala

Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, August 31, 2025. (Reuters/Amir Cohen)
17 hours ago

Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet

Demonstrators hold a banner during the 'March for Australia' anti-immigration rally, in Sydney, Australia, August 31, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams
17 hours ago

Thousands in Australia March Against Immigration, Government Condemns Rally

President Donald Trump walks on the grounds of the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, U.S., August 30, 2025. (Reuters/Nathan Howard)
17 hours ago

Trump Says He Will Order Voter ID Requirement for Every Vote

Activists Yasemin Acar, Greta Thunberg and Thiago Avila attend a press conference before the departure of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a humanitarian expedition to Gaza, at the port of Barcelona, Spain August 31, 2025. (Reuters/Eva Manez)
17 hours ago

Greta Thunberg Joins Flotilla Heading for Gaza With Aid

National Guard troops wear gas masks during protests against federal immigration sweeps, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 12, 2025. (Reuters File)
17 hours ago

Chicago Mayor Says Police Will Not Aid Federal Troops or Agents

A view of tents sheltering Palestinians displaced by the Israeli military offensive, in Gaza City, August 23, 2025. (Reuters File)
17 hours ago

Post-War Gaza Plan Sees Relocation of Population, ‘Digital Token’ for Palestinian Land: Washington Post

Search

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Send this to a friend