According to a 2016 Haaretz interview with Adnan Ghosheh, a senior water and sanitation specialist at the World Bank, the Gaza Strip will become uninhabitable for human beings by 2020.
This grim forecast is supported by the Institute for National Security Studies in a report titled "Water and Energy Crisis in Gaza: Snapshot 2017."
According to the report, the "lack of clean water for domestic use and unsafe sanitary conditions pose a serious public health threat to the two million people living in the Gaza Strip. By now, large amounts of untreated wastewater have already crossed Gaza's borders and created additional repercussions for several neighboring communities in Egypt and Israel, with Israel at one point forced to close two of its beaches."
When unlimited drinking water flows from the taps in Ashkelon, just north of Gaza, it is too easy to accuse Israel of unjustly dividing this precious resource, as self-righteous Israelis, and Europeans, sometimes do. These voices continue to condescend, absolving the local leadership of any responsibility. But it is the Palestinian leaders who actually bear the blame for this disgraceful situation.
The fact is that the deterioration of Gaza's water aquifers is a perfect reflection of the deterioration of the Oslo Accords. It is not a military or diplomatic issue, but rather a refusal to take any responsibility for providing basic infrastructure that is essential for maintaining the most fundamental aspects of life – preventing disease and death. If only they dug sewer tunnels for the betterment of Gaza rather than terror tunnels to the detriment of Israel.
It very well may be that in their heart of hearts, at least as far as water is concerned, the residents of Gaza actually miss Israeli rule. In the days of direct Israeli administration of Gaza, Arabs had access to the same good water their Jewish neighbors enjoyed, coming from 1,400 local wells. The drilling of the coastal aquifer was supervised and the water was pumped with great care.
But then, in 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, and the water industry was left unsupervised. Unbridled drilling quadrupled the number of wells to around 6,000, with most being dug by individuals in crisis because Hamas authorities failed to provide the population with basic amenities. The lack of investment in a sewage systems resulted in the contamination of the water in the aquifers. Leaky pipes now lose around 38% of the water that runs through them, according to 2017 World Bank report. No one is even mentioning the notion of recycling waste water for use in agriculture and very little has been done to increase water supply through desalination.
Residents of Israel may grumble about the cost of water, but no one imagines the tap running dry. The Israeli authorities, caught off guard by the 2008-2009 water shortage, learned their lesson. They enacted educational and economic measures that significantly reduced domestic water use. They invested in wastewater purification and agricultural water reclamation that recycles almost 90% of wastewater, making Israel a world leader (Spain is next, at less than 30%). Finally, Israel built desalination plants that provide 70% of the water designated for domestic use.
The question whether Israel should rise above the terror and, despite facing a five-year drought itself, be generous with its water, is reminiscent of Aesop's fable about the ant and the grasshopper. The ant, who slaved all summer, was well fed in the winter. The ant's generosity does not have the power to help the grasshopper. The most Israel can do is to bring the liquid of life to the border, where it will only be met with chaos and darkness.
But even if it were to receive the millions of cubic meters of water that it lacks, Gaza is ill-equipped to collect it. This colossal failure is shared by the Hamas leadership, which prefers rockets over desalination membranes, and the U.N. agency UNRWA, which, after 69 years, still can't manage to provide a third generation of Palestinian refugees the proper living environment, as it is required to do under U.N. General Assembly Resolution 302.
Unfortunately for its residents, as long as Gaza's leadership prefers to invest in Israel's destruction rather than in Gaza's independence, this situation is not likely to change.
