MSF criticism towards Israel | EUROtoday

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«My nephew was in Nuseirat. He had gone to get some ingesting water, was consistent with different youngsters they usually killed him. He was 10 years outdated. Going to get water should not be harmful.” Water is used as a weapon in Gaza. The story, which dates back to July 2025, comes from Hanan, a Palestinian from Gaza City, and is contained in the new report by Doctors Without Borders “Water as a Weapon: Israel’s Destruction and Deprivation of Water and Sanitation in Gaza” in which it clearly emerges that the use of access to water by the Israeli authorities has been used as a weapon against the Palestinians.

The NGO’s accusation against Israel’s strategy

The NGO documented that access to basic hygiene, including clean water, soap, diapers and hygiene products, has become extremely difficult in the Strip. People are forced to dig holes in the sand and use them as latrines, with inevitable consequences: these holes flood and contaminate the surrounding environment and groundwater with feces. Lack of access to water also leads to an increase in diseases, including respiratory skin infections and diarrheal diseases.

Claire San Filippo, MSF emergency manager, explains that “Palestinians had been injured and killed merely making an attempt to get water”. Israel – according to data collected by the NGO – has destroyed or damaged almost 90% of the water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza, including desalination plants, wells, pipelines and sewage systems. MSF teams have documented cases in which the Israeli army fired at clearly identifiable tankers or destroyed wells that provided a lifeline for tens of thousands of people. Episodes of violence often occurred during the distribution of water to the population, causing injuries among Palestinians and aid workers and damaging equipment. The result is that if the UN recognizes a standard of 50 liters per day per person as a fundamental right, even today in Gaza the average daily supply is only seven liters of drinking water and sixteen liters of water for domestic use.

The letter from Cardinal Pizzaballa

The Israeli army’s raids then continue. The IDF announced yesterday that it had demolished fourteen kilometers of Hamas tunnels in the north of the Strip. And in an Israeli attack in the Beit Lahiya area, a Palestinian teenager was killed and one person was injured. The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported this, adding that the fifteen-year-old killed was called Ayham al-Omari.

He spoke yesterday about the suffering of the Palestinian people the cardinal of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballawho in a long pastoral letter to the faithful of his diocese addresses the issue with the frankness that distinguishes him: Pizzaballa writes that it is not possible to “draw up a rating of struggling”, but “there’s a distinction between those that train energy and people who undergo it, between those that govern and people who are ruled, between those that possess weapons and people who are threatened by them, between those that occupy and people who are occupied” underlining that “the duties are completely different. Recognizing this distinction is an act of respect in the direction of justice and reality.”