"Even before the and the annihilation of almost all the territory's infrastructure, the situation there was much worse. According to the World Bank, the water supply in Gaza has been at "crisis levels" since 2005. UNICEF reported that in 2020 only 10 percent of the population in Gaza had direct access to clean and safe drinking water. Palestinians in Gaza were prevented from drilling wells and importing materials such as cement and iron needed to repair water infrastructure. At the same time, the chronic electricity deficit also heavily impaired functional water management. These past years have shown that economic dependency can easily be transformed into a genocidal instrument. After October 2023, Israel cut off electricity to Gaza, making the of water dependent on fuel, which was also subjected to repeated blockades of one hundred days for longer. This catastrophic man-made drought has meant that thousands of children have died of thirst and suffered from diarrhea, scabies and polio."