Palestinian president accuses Israel of using water as weapon to displace Gazans

RAMALLAH/ISTANBUL

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel on Sunday of using water as a “weapon of war” to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

“The (Israeli) occupation used another weapon to increase suffering, displacement, and indeed the slow death of our people, by halting all basic services, especially water, and preventing access to humanitarian aid in flagrant contravention of international human rights conventions and international resolutions,” Abbas said in a speech marking World Water Day.

Abbas called on the international community to take "practical and radical steps” to find just solutions regarding the exacerbating water crisis in Gaza, the official news agency Wafa reported.

"The world must realize that there is no more important cause than the cause of Palestinian children in Gaza, who line up for hours to get a liter of water, drink contaminated water, are deprived of food and medicine, die of dehydration and thirst, and are denied the right to live in safety like the rest of the world's children," he said.

He said Israel’s use of water as a weapon of war “is an extension of a decades-long systematic policy of plundering and controlling all surface and groundwater resources to control the lives of Palestinians, uproot them from their land, and implement its political agenda of illegal settlement expansion and undermining the two-state solution."

The Israeli army has launched a surprise aerial campaign on Gaza since Tuesday, killing more than 700 Palestinians, injuring over 1,000 others, and shattering a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January.

Nearly 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and more than 113,000 injured in a brutal Israeli military onslaught on Gaza since October 2023.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.