No life without water: How Israel’s actions in Gaza echo past genocides by Mark Zeitoun, Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Ghassan Abu-Sittah, Danilo Türk, Reem Abu Shomar

Israel’s blockade restricts access to fuel required to pump and clean water, equipment to restore damaged systems, and even bottled water. Bombing water infrastructure contaminates drinking water with raw sewage. This causes diarrheal disease like dysentery, which leads to malnutrition and increased vulnerability to further illness. Forced crowding into displacement camps and the spread of antimicrobial resistance worsen the cycle. As a result, many Palestinians have resorted to drinking salty water, damaging their kidneys. This past week alone, over 10,000 new cases of acute watery diarrhea (more than half in children under 5) were added to nearly one million cases, along with 90 new cases of Acute Jaundice Syndrome.

These are the conditions of death. If shrapnel doesn’t kill you, microbes in polluted water might within days; wounds untreatable with antibiotics, within weeks; water-related disease, within months; kidney failure, in decades. Survivors will face a poisoned environment—a toxic biosphere of war—for just about forever.