A U.S. Emergency Manager's View of the Water Systems Crisis in Gaza

Before October 2023, Gaza's water sector already faced severe and persistent challenges, including aquifer contamination, damaged infrastructure, and limited system reliability. The ongoing armed conflict has intensified these conditions, causing unprecedented destruction and the near-total breakdown of water and wastewater services. The conflict itself continues to obstruct remediation, mitigation, and broader efforts to address the longstanding public health crisis.Many residents now depend on brackish well water, limited desalination output, or imported bottled water because local systems cannot provide consistently reliable and safe drinking water. Access to clean water remains a critical humanitarian concern, with repeated disruptions caused by damaged pipelines, fuel and parts shortages for water pumps, and restrictions on the import of repair materials. From an emergency management perspective, this constitutes a chronic disaster with urgent and unresolved life-safety consequences.Gaza's wastewater infrastructure has also sustained extensive damage, leaving large portions of the system inoperable. Damage to treatment plants and sewage pipelines has led to repeated sewage overflows and the discharge of untreated wastewater into the environment, including discharge of untreated sewage into the Mediterranean and the flow of sewage near displacement sites. These failures heighten public health risks by increasing exposure to contaminated drinking water, waterborne disease, and broader environmental pollution/contamination, including direct human exposure to sewage-contaminated coastal water.This paper posits that protecting civilians' health and restoring essential water and wastewater services remain central to any response, and suggests applying the relatively new U.S.-based Community Lifelines concept for emergency management to help prioritize critical infrastructure restoration. It will examine the crisis in Gaza through a U.S. emergency management lens-a view not previously taken by disaster researchers-with particular attention to the humanitarian and ethical imperative to prioritize life safety before, during, and after any type of disaster, via the WASH-Health nexus.