Framing Gaza’s Water Crisis Through the Israeli Occupation: Political Violence, Livelihoods, and Everyday Resistance

Ghadir Salame, University of Ottawa (Canada)

This paper examines Gaza’s water crisis as a form of political violence embedded in Israel’s long-standing systems of occupation and infrastructural control. Moving beyond humanitarian framings of scarcity, it uses feminist political ecology and political economy to analyze how Israeli policies, ranging from military orders issued since 1967 to the post-October 2023 siege, systematically deny Palestinians access to safe water. The study highlights how water scarcity destabilizes livelihoods by undermining small businesses, particularly bakeries, and threatening food security, public health, and community cohesion. Drawing on global scholarship on gender, informality, and urban marginality, it situates Gaza’s crisis within broader struggles against resource deprivation and ecological injustice. Special attention is given to the gendered burdens of water access, as women bear disproportionate responsibility for securing household supplies under conditions of violence and scarcity. Despite this repression, Gazan communities respond through grassroots innovation, mutual aid, and everyday acts of resistance that challenge structures of domination and sustain survival.