DayofPal– Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a new report published on Thursday, Dec 19, that Israel has been using water as a tool of extermination and genocide in Gaza.
The report revealed that Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water, which it says legally amounts to acts of genocide and extermination.
“This policy, inflicted as part of a mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, means Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, which is ongoing. This policy also amounts to an ‘act of genocide’ under the Genocide Convention of 1948,” Human Rights Watch said in its report.
The report characterized the denial of water as a genocidal act but emphasized that holding Israeli officials accountable for genocide would hinge on demonstrating clear intent behind their actions.
It cited statements by some senior Israeli officials which it said suggested they “wish to destroy Palestinians”, which means the deprivation of water “may amount to the crime of genocide”.
Ms Lama Fakih, Human Rights Watch’s Middle East director, told a press conference that “What we have found is that the Israeli government is intentionally killing Palestinians in Gaza by denying them the water that they need to survive.”
The 184-page Human Rights Watch report also mentioned that the Israeli government stopped water being piped into Gaza and cut off electricity and restricted fuel, which meant Gaza’s own water and sanitation facilities could not be used.
As a result, Palestinians in Gaza had access to only a few litres of water a day in many areas, far below the 15 litre threshold for survival, the group said.
HRW said it interviewed 66 Palestinians in Gaza between October 18, 2023, and July 23, 2024, about the near-impossibility of sourcing water. It also spoke with four Gaza Coastal Municipalities Water Utility employees, 31 doctors and healthcare professionals, and 15 individuals working with UN agencies and international aid organisations in Gaza.
Furthermore, The Israeli army has destroyed 717 water wells and rendered them out of service in addition to reservoirs and infrastructure, including 330,000 linear meters of water networks, further worsening the water crisis.
The rights watchdog also said it analysed satellite imagery and verified photographs and videos that show extensive damage and destruction to Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure.
The damage HRW documented includes “the apparently deliberate, systematic razing of the solar panels powering four of Gaza’s six wastewater treatment plants by Israeli ground forces, as well as Israeli soldiers filming themselves demolishing a key water reservoir”.
Human Rights Watch is the second major rights group in a month to use the word “genocide” to describe the actions of Israel in Gaza, after Amnesty International issued a report that concluded that Israel was committing genocide.
Both reports came just weeks after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence chief for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. They deny the allegations.
Israel’s war campaign on Gaza has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population and reduced much of the coastal enclave to ruins, according to Reuters.
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