Israel’s war on Gaza has not only destroyed entire neighborhoods, displaced families multiple times, and destroyed medical facilities, it has also contaminated the very ground and water that Palestinians depend on.
Four weeks into the fragile ceasefire, which Israel violates daily, the scale of environmental destruction has become painfully clear.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan district, once a vibrant community, has been reduced to wasteland. Houses are in ruins, and what was once a vital water source, a rainwater pond, is now flooded with sewage and debris. For many displaced families, it is both home and danger.
Umm Hisham is pregnant and living in a refugee camp, wading through dirty water with her children. They have nowhere else to go.
“We took shelter here, around Sheikh Radwan Pond, with every imaginable suffering, from mosquitoes to sewage due to rising water levels, not to mention the destruction of the surrounding area. All this poses a danger to our lives and the lives of our children,” she told Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim Al-Khaliri.
The pond was designed to collect rainwater and channel it into the sea, and is now filled with raw sewage after the pump was destroyed in an Israeli air raid. With electrical and sanitary systems failing, the contaminated water continues to swell and threatens to engulf nearby homes and tents.
“There is no doubt that there is a serious impact on all citizens: bad smells, insects, mosquitoes. Also, the level of the sewage water without any protection is more than 6 meters (20 feet) high. The fence has been completely destroyed and there is a high possibility that children, women, old people and even cars will fall into this pond,” Maher Salem, a Gaza City municipal official, told Al Jazeera.
Local authorities have warned that stagnant water could lead to disease outbreaks, especially among children. But for many in Gaza, there is no other choice.
“Families know that the water they get from wells, containers and water trucks is contaminated… but they have no other choice,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said in an interview from Gaza City.
destroyed water infrastructure
At the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, Palestinian Ambassador Ibrahim Alzeben described the crisis as an environmental catastrophe intertwined with Israeli genocide.
“It is no secret that Gaza is suffering because of Israel’s continued genocide. This war has caused nearly 250,000 casualties and produced more than 61 million tons of rubble, some of which is contaminated with hazardous substances,” he said.
“Furthermore, the deliberate destruction of sewerage and water networks has led to the contamination of groundwater and coastal waters. Gaza currently faces serious risks to public health and environmental risks are increasing,” Alzeben added.
He said Israeli attacks had also “destroyed” much of the enclave’s agricultural land, leaving it in a state of “severe food insecurity and starvation where food is used as a weapon.”
In September, a United Nations report warned that Gaza’s freshwater supplies were “severely limited and much of what remains is contaminated.”
“The collapse of sewage treatment infrastructure, the destruction of piping systems, and the use of sewage treatment plant cesspools are likely increasing contamination of the aquifers that supply water to large parts of Gaza,” the United Nations Environment Program report said.
Back in Sheikh Radwan, the air is thick with corruption and despair. “When every day becomes a struggle to find water, food and bread, safety becomes secondary,” Mahmoud said.
