Human Rights Watch said in a report published on Thursday that Israel is committing the crime of extermination and acts of genocide by depriving the civilian population of Gaza of the necessary amount of water to survive.
HRW said in a press release that its 179-page report found “that Israeli authorities have intentionally deprived Palestinians in Gaza of access to safe water for drinking and sanitation needed for basic human survival.”
“Israeli authorities and forces cut off and later restricted piped water to Gaza; rendered most of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure useless by cutting electricity and restricting fuel; deliberately destroyed and damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials; and blocked the entry of critical water supplies,” HRW said.
The report found the restrictions on water have likely caused thousands of deaths. “Doctors and nurses told Human Rights Watch that they had seen numerous infants, children, and adults die from a combination of malnutrition, dehydration, and disease,” the report reads.
HRW said it spoke with 66 Palestinians in Gaza, who discussed the near-impossibility of securing water for themselves and their families. “If we can’t find drinkable water, we drink the seawater,” one father displaced in Rafah told the organization in December 2023. “It happened to me many times when I had to drink the seawater. You don’t understand how much we are suffering.”
The report found that, on average, Palestinians in Gaza live with 2-9 liters of water per day for their drinking, cooking, and personal washing needs, far below the 50-100 liters per day the World Health Organization (WHO) says in the minimum people need to meet their most basic needs. In protracted emergency situations, the WHO says a minimum amount of 15 liters of water per person per day for drinking and washing is needed.
HRW said Israeli authorities have “deliberately inflicted conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the population in Gaza.” By doing so, Israeli officials are “responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide.”
HRW said this “pattern of conduct, coupled with statements suggesting that some Israeli officials wished to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, may amount to the crime of genocide. “
The HRW report comes after Amnesty International released a 296-page report that concluded Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The US government, which is implicated in Israel’s crimes due to the huge amount of US military aid to Israel, denied Amnesty’s conclusion and said on Thursday that it “disagreed” with HRW’s report.
“When it comes to a determination of something like genocide, the legal standard is just incredibly high, and so the finding in this scenario we just disagree with,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.