‘Close to collapse’ water system having inhumane consequences for people in Gaza, ActionAid Ireland warns

June 19, 2025

Huge hikes in the price of drinking water and blocks to fuel entering Gaza could lead to the water system completely collapsing at a time when temperatures are rising, ActionAid Ireland is warning.

The price of water currently stands at $30-$38 USD (26– 32 EUR) for 1,000 litres of drinking water, which is 400 per cent more than pre-war levels. Along with these hikes, the Israeli military continues to target water facilities and key infrastructure has been damaged or completely destroyed. The Israeli authorities have cut off electricity in Gaza and are still enforcing a de facto aid blockade, denying fuel, needed to pump water and power desalinisation plants, means that water in Gaza is critically low.

The water shortage is having inhumane consequences for people living in Gaza with many families resorting to drinking unsafe water from agricultural wells or contaminated groundwater.

Karol Balfe, ActionAid Ireland CEO, said: “As temperatures rise, so does the risk of dehydration, disease outbreaks, and child malnutrition. Contaminated water sources and failing sewage systems further increase the danger. Unless access improves and fuel is restored, the water system is close to collapse.”

Families, especially children, are also being forced to walk two to three kilometres in temperatures ranging from 32 – 38 degrees Celsius to collect water. Collecting water for their families is now the responsibility of many children in Gaza and so their childhoods have been stolen. The walks are long, exhausting, and dangerous, with risks including heatstroke, unsafe roads, and exposure to conflict zones. Even after hours of waiting, families often return with only one or two jerry cans.

A mother forcibly displaced in Gaza said: “Water here is not just a necessity; it has become a daily battle. We walk long distances and wait for hours. Every drop we get is like treasure.

“Our children are already being deprived of their right to education [and also] they remain waiting in water queues, perhaps filling up or not, and returning with empty gallons.” She added, “This is the most difficult of our rights.”

ActionAid is planning with its local partners to provide drinking water trucks to shelters and displacement sites with little or no access. It is also exploring the distribution of water containers and basic purification supplies. The Israeli authorities continue to deliberately impede, control and limit the delivery of food, medical supplies and vital aid to the people of Gaza. This is leading to the starvation of many Palestinian people.

Ms Balfe, said: “We are becoming increasingly concerned about the number of people killed by Israeli forces while waiting for receiving food from U.S.-backed aid plan. In Rafah and Wadi Gaza, 300 people have been killed and more than 2,600 people injured. It is unacceptable to see civilians suffering from starvation have been killed while seeking food. This mechanism is supposed to save lives but instead of being a safe humanitarian space it is a death site.”

We call for all border crossings to be fully reopened and the continuous free flow of aid – including fuel, medical supplies and heavy machinery – into Gaza must be guaranteed, to reach those who need it urgently.”

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.