MSF says Israel uses water access to collectively punish Palestinians

Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) has accused Israeli authorities of systematically denying Gaza’s population the water needed to survive, describing the policy as a form of “collective punishment” against Palestinians.

The medical charity said the widespread destruction of civilian water systems across the enclave, combined with restrictions on access, forms “an integral part of Israel’s genocide”.

In its report, “Water as a Weapon”, MSF said this “engineered scarcity” is unfolding in parallel with the “direct killing of civilians, the devastation of health facilities, (and) the destruction of homes”.

Drawing on testimonies and data gathered by MSF in 2024 and 2025, the report said the combined effect amounts to “the deliberate infliction of destructive and inhumane conditions of life on the Palestinian population in Gaza”.

Claire San Filippo, MSF’s Emergency Manager, said Israeli authorities were using access to water as a “weapon to collectively punish Palestinians”.

“The Israeli authorities know that without water life ends, and in Gaza they have used access to water as a weapon to collectively punish Palestinians.”

She said the pattern was unfolding alongside the “killing of civilians, the obliteration of the healthcare system, as well as the flattening of infrastructure, including homes and forced displacement of the population”.

Although an October ceasefire largely paused the Gaza war that erupted after Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel, the territory is still marked by daily violence, with Israeli strikes continuing and both the Israeli military and Hamas blaming each other for violating the truce.

Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One, Ms San Filippo said cutting people off from water creates destructive living conditions and is an “integral part of the ongoing genocide in Gaza”.

Nearly 90% of water and sanitation infrastructure damaged

Israel dismissed the MSF report, which cited United Nations, European Union and World Bank data showing that nearly 90% of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure had been destroyed or damaged.

“Desalination plants, boreholes, pipelines and sewage systems have been rendered inoperable or inaccessible,” the report said.

The organisation also recorded several cases in which its clearly marked water trucks and boreholes were shot at or destroyed.

Asked whether the collapse in water access was simply a byproduct of bombing or something more deliberate, Ms San Filippo said there had “definitely” been systematic destruction and damage to Gaza’s water infrastructure.

Despite an October ceasefire that largely halted the Gaza war that began after Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel, the territory remains gripped by daily violence

Beyond the physical damage, she said, Israeli authorities have repeatedly prevented vital water-related supplies from entering Gaza.

Ms San Filippo said MSF had raised the issue with Israel on numerous occasions and had urged the authorities to restore water access and permit humanitarian aid at scale, including materials needed for water and sanitation.

The charity said that, aside from the local authorities, it was the largest producer and principal distributor of drinking water in Gaza.

Last month, it said, the group supplied more than 5.3 million litres of water each day — enough to cover the minimum needs of more than 407,000 people, or about a fifth of Gaza’s population.

But throughout the war, “Israeli military displacement orders have locked our teams out of areas where we had provided water to hundreds of thousands of people,” the MSF statement said.

MSF added that a third of its requests to bring in critical water and sanitation supplies — including desalination units, pumps, water tanks, insect repellent, chlorine and other water-treatment chemicals — had “been rejected or left unanswered”.

‘Baseless claims’

COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, sharply rejected what it called “the baseless claims” contained in the report.

In a statement, it said “water supply in Gaza consistently exceeds humanitarian thresholds”, and argued that “far from ‘preventing’ access, Israel facilitates and provides water from its own sources”.

COGAT also said MSF’s “operational delays” stemmed from the organisation’s “refusal to follow standard registration protocols and their history of employing individuals linked to terror”.

Contacted by AFP, MSF said it did not wish to respond to Israel’s accusations.