The Legal Department of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine affirmed that the positions expressed by Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, regarding Israel’s systematic policy of imposing thirst on the Gaza Strip, constitute a major blow to the Israeli narrative and a clear international condemnation of Israeli war crimes.
The Legal Department pointed out that the revelations made by the UN official do not represent a personal opinion, but rather align, first, with the September UN report which concluded that Israel is committing genocide, and second, with an accumulating body of international testimonies, field reports, and findings issued by major human rights and humanitarian organizations. All of these have documented the systematic targeting of Gaza’s water infrastructure with the aim of breaking the will of a people facing the harshest forms of blockade and aggression.
The testimony of the UN Rapporteur comes from an impartial international authority and intersects with public admissions made by Israeli leaders themselves, who announced, in the earliest hours of the war, the imposition of a “complete siege” on Gaza, including water, food, fuel, and electricity. Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant even boasted of cutting off water supplies to the Strip, while Energy Minister (now Defense Minister) Israel Katz ordered a total shutdown of water, in explicit acknowledgment that the use of thirst was a deliberate political decision, not the result of emergency conditions.

Legal Framework: A Fully Constituted War Crime
The Legal Department of the Democratic Front states that using water as a weapon by the Israeli army to collectively subjugate civilians constitutes a violation of a broad set of international legal instruments, foremost among them:
1. Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998).
2. Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).
3. Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1977).
4. Article 14 of Additional Protocol II (1977).
5. Rule 54 of the Customary International Humanitarian Law database.
The Legal Department affirms that the accumulation of evidence and testimonies, from international reports, survivor accounts, statements by Israeli soldiers and officers, and official admissions, now forms a comprehensive legal file establishing both the individual criminal responsibility of Israeli leaders and the international responsibility of the occupying state. On this basis, the Department calls for including this evidence in submissions before the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, in addition to using it before national courts that apply the principle of universal jurisdiction, thereby opening the door to wide, ranging prosecutions against anyone involved in ordering, implementing, or colluding in these crimes.
The Department also emphasized that Western states that continue to arm Israel and provide it with political and diplomatic cover bear direct moral and legal responsibility, not merely as supporters, but as active participants in the crime by enabling Israel to continue its aggression. These states must immediately review their policies and halt all military and political support.
The Legal Department of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine saluted the popular movements across the world, political parties, unions, student groups, and civil society organizations, and called on them to make accountability for Israeli crimes a central slogan in their mobilization efforts, and to intensify public pressure on governments to force them to end their support for the aggression and withdraw their cover for it.