On Water

Of all the terrifying aspects of life in Gaza, perhaps the most ominous of all is the water crisis. Less visible than the repeated assaults, less likely to make headlines than the political impasse, the depletion of Gaza’s aquifer is an inexorable countdown that threatens every single one of the territory’s 2.1 million inhabitants. Not in some remote future—now.

In 2013, the UN issued a report affirming that by 2016 there would be no more potable water in Gaza, and that by 2020 damage to the aquifer would be irreversible. That was before the 2014 assault left 80 percent of the territory’s water networks destroyed and its damaged sanitation network leaking raw sewage into farmland and the sea. More than a hundred thousand people don’t have running water at all; those who are connected usually have water in their taps for just a few hours every three or four days. The water they receive is, by all international standards, undrinkable. Those who can afford to pay for privately distributed drinking water often spend up to a third of their family income on water alone.