Destroyed desalination plant worsens Gaza’s drinking water crisis
Maram Humaid reports in Al Jazeera on 1 September 2026:
Zuhair al-Nasr walks through Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood carrying two water containers, looking for somewhere to fill them. The 74-year-old is not sure where he will find drinking water for his family. For the past week, he says, he has barely been able to fill the containers. The water he has managed to get comes from a groundwater well rather than the desalinated water he used to rely on.
Only weeks ago, Zuhair did not have to search like this. A newly built desalination plant near the tents where he lives had brought clean drinking water to his area. Pipes had been connected, allowing residents to access water around the clock. For about two months, Zuhair says, the plant made managing life during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza a little bit easier.
Zuhair lives with his large family – he has 13 children and more than 20 grandchildren – in a tent because his home in Beit Hanoon, north of Gaza City, was destroyed by Israel during the war.
Securing water for the family is a vital daily task, and the desalination plant meant that he no longer had to carry water over long distances. But then, on August 24, Israel bombed the desalination plant, as it continues to flout the October ceasefire deal it agreed to.
The strike destroyed the plant and also damaged nearby displacement tents and residential structures.
Without the plant, Zuhair and Palestinians across Sheikh Radwan have been forced to go back to travelling long distances to get water. “We were comfortable,” Zuhair says. “We’re suffering now. The water is the lifeline of our life. For drinking, cooking, washing and bathing.”
When water brought life back
Zuhair says his neighbourhood had become cleaner and more lively after the desalination plant arrived earlier this year. A steady and reliable source of clean water had encouraged people to return and resettle the area.
“Where there is water, there is life,” he says. For families who had already lost their homes and been displaced by the war, the plant offered a rare sense of stability.