Israel connects Gaza to its electricity, provides water to civilians

Work began Tuesday to connect a water facility in Gaza to Israel’s electric grid to provide water on a medium- to longer-term basis for Gazans at a rate of up to 20,000 liters per day.

Immediately upon the news being leaked to the media, several nationalistic figures from the opposition and the government criticized the development.

The new policy is a critical aspect of maintaining Israel’s global legitimacy to enable it to continue the war against Hamas, IDF sources said.

Since the International Court of Justice issued a ruling several months ago that could be interpreted as an order to end the war, the IDF and Israel have been under increasing pressure to go beyond minimal assistance to Palestinian civilians and to facilitate humanitarian aid that meets the world’s higher expectations.

Evacuating Palestinian civilians

Furthermore, IDF sources said the world had been stunned by Israel’s success in evacuating 1.4 Palestinian civilians from Rafah, without a humanitarian disaster, in early May.

A large part of that success was long-term planning to anticipate Palestinian civilians’ water and food needs, the IDF sources said. With the summer hitting record temperatures in the area, if the water facility in question does not attain optimal capacity, there could be dire humanitarian consequences, they said.

Most of the 1.4 million evacuated Palestinians are in al-Muwasi on the Gaza coast, western Khan Yunis, or Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, the IDF sources said. This facility would enable them to maintain their water needs, and this was part of the reason the US did not heavily oppose the Rafah invasion and ongoing military operations, they said.

Different IDF sources have said the military needs six months or more of activities in Rafah to eliminate Hamas’s cross-border Philadelphi Corridor tunnels into Egypt to end its capability to rearm.

Moreover, the IDF said it was not involved in who from the governing coalition did or did not know about the decision, but from its standpoint, the electricity hookup for the water facility was approved by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.