Gaza media office: Israel turning water deprivation into 'tool of genocide'

Israel is deliberately depriving the 2.4 million population of Gaza of water through targeted attacks on water supplies and desalination plants, the Gaza government media office said in a statement. 

It warned that Israel is "turning water into a tool of genocide and a weapon of slow killing", highlighting a severe humanitarian and environmental disaster looming over the besieged enclave.

"The occupation continues its deliberate deprivation of the population of the minimum amount of water necessary for survival by systematically targeting water infrastructure, halting supply lines, destroying water stations and wells, and cutting off electricity and fuel needed to operate water and sanitation facilities," it added. 

Over 90 percent of Gaza's water and sanitation infrastructure has been systematically destroyed, the statement noted, resulting in over 1.7 million cases of water-related illness.

"We hold the 'Israeli' occupation, the US administration and countries complicit in the genocide - such as the United Kingdom, Germany and France - fully responsible for the lives of more than 2.4 million people in the Gaza Strip, including more than 1 million children. We affirm that the use of water as a tool of murder is a crime that does not expire with time," the statement concluded.