By Sõzarn Barday
Water has become one of the most powerful—and least acknowledged—weapons of modern warfare.
The Al-Wehda Dam supplies water and hydroelectric power to Jordan and Syria. Built on the Yarmouk River, which forms part of the border between the two states, it lies less than 10 kilometres from Israel’s position in the occupied Golan Heights. The Yarmouk feeds into the Jordan River system, making the Golan Heights a critical hydrological collection zone and strategic amplifier for Jordan, Syria and Israel alike.
In a region defined by chronic water scarcity, control over water infrastructure is inseparable from political and military power. In southern Lebanon, Israeli military operations aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities have included strikes on civilian water infrastructure. The Wazzani pumping station—a key water processing facility—was damaged, raising serious concerns about contamination. Toxins from munitions are reportedly leaching into surrounding water sources, creating long-term risks to public health and the environment.
Such actions raise grave concerns under international law. International humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, prohibits attacks on objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, including drinking water installations and supplies. The International Committee of the Red Cross has repeatedly warned that damage to water infrastructure in armed conflict “reverberates long after the fighting ends,” exposing civilian populations to disease, displacement and death.
In Gaza, water deprivation has been even more overt. Israel cut electricity at the outset of the war, crippling the Deir al-Balah desalination plant and sharply reducing Gaza’s capacity to produce potable water. Subsequent attacks destroyed at least 30 water wells, collapsing an already fragile system. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the lack of safe water in Gaza has become a primary driver of disease and forced displacement, particularly among children.
Beyond immediate theatres of war, long-term water diversion has reshaped the region’s ecology. The Dead Sea, bordered by Israel, the occupied West Bank and Jordan, has been steadily depleted by upstream control of the Jordan River. Once fed by approximately 1.3 billion cubic metres of fresh water annually, the river now delivers less than 100 million cubic metres to the Dead Sea—much of it polluted agricultural runoff and sewage.
Even military symbolism reflects how deeply water and territory are intertwined. Israeli soldiers have been photographed wearing patches depicting a map of “Greater Israel,” encompassing Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Control of land, in this vision, is inseparable from control of rivers, aquifers and dams.
Water is not a military luxury. It is a civilian necessity protected under international law. When water systems are destroyed, polluted or deliberately withheld, the result is not only environmental damage but the systematic erosion of civilian life. In the Middle East, water has become both a casualty of war and a tool of domination—used not only to win battles, but to make survival itself uncertain.
Sõzarn Barday is a South African lawyer. She writes on human rights, international law, and political developments in the Middle East. The views expressed are her own.
