How Israel's war on Lebanon's water has become existential

It was half past five in the afternoon when Bahij Abdallah saw a white object pass overhead. He was outside a pumping station in Ebel el-Saqi, in the hills above Marjayoun, checking on an open water reservoir. He had sat down on a stone step with his phone in his hand, while three colleagues remained inside. At first, he thought the white thing was a drone. “Suddenly, it stopped in the air for a second, turned, and fell on the station,” Abdallah told Middle East Eye. “Then the smoke and the fire started.” The phone flew out of his hand. He felt a wall of air, and then metal pushing into his body. He looked down and saw blood dripping from his face. His shoulder was burning. When he stood up, he saw that his shoe had been cut open. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Abdallah, an electrical maintenance employee with the South Lebanon Water Establishment (SLWE), the state utility that supplies drinking water to two governorates, had been doing what he does most days: running the station and monitoring it. The facility is well known in the region and clearly marked, he said. “There are signs, and vehicles with the name and logo on them, that it belongs to the South Lebanon Water Establishment, which is a government body. And we were wearing the work uniform.” The attack occurred on 9 June 2026, five days after Israel and the Lebanese government announced in Washington that they had agreed to a ceasefire. 'I could have died in seconds. And I wasn't doing anything wrong; I was only pumping water for people to drink' - Bahij Abdallah, state utility worker Abdallah was taken to hospital where he underwent operations for severed tendons in his leg and shrapnel in his chest and shoulder. He spent two days in intensive care. He still walks slowly, cannot run, and is undergoing physiotherapy. His colleagues were not injured, and the station itself kept running; the damage was structural rather than technical, hitting an office and storage room. Days later, the Lebanese army announced that a specialist unit had dismantled an unexploded guided aerial bomb inside the same water treatment station. “The station is rural,” Abdallah said. “There are no houses near it, or anything else.” He has not gone back to work. “It’s honestly not safe to go there anymore,” he said. “I could have died in seconds. And I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was only pumping water for people to drink.” 'If we don't provide water, they won't return' In the largest return movement of the war, more than 823,000 people have gone back to southern Lebanon in recent months, according to the United Nations humanitarian affairs office (Ocha), as the fragile ceasefire has remained in place. Some 334,000 remain displaced. In its assessments of the areas where people are returning, Ocha has consistently listed water and electricity as the services most frequently reported missing. A family can clear its own rubble and patch its own roof, but it cannot rebuild a pumping station, or re-lay two kilometres of a main utility line, or clean an aquifer. The scale of what has been lost is set out in an assessment published in July by the SLWE, covering two rounds of war between 2024 and 2026. It counts 175 reservoirs damaged, along with 16 main pumping stations, 124 wells and boreholes, nine springs, 104 chlorination systems, 85 generators, and more than 2,500 kilometres of pipe. The state utility puts the associated costs at more than $550m, and the number of people affected at more than 700,000. Restoring these systems will take years. The SLWE, which is meant to do the rebuilding, has itself been hollowed out. Twenty-six of its employees have been killed by Israel since the war began, according to director general Wassim Daher, while its subscriber base has dwindled by around a third, representing a revenue collapse as much as a population statistic. Unlike electricity or telecommunications, water in Lebanon is not centrally administered; the SLWE is effectively the only public institution in this sector that is still operating across the south. Daher describes as a system strangled. More than 80 percent of its operating problems come down to the absence of electricity: the generators cannot run for more than five hours, the stations need 12, and the national grid does not reach many of the villages to which people have returned. “If we don’t provide water, they won’t return,” he told MEE. But to read the past three years as an isolated war on water is to miss what has been happening for the past century. Long before the current conflict, Israel has been diverting and destroying Lebanon’s water systems. A century of war on water In 1919, as the region was gradually being reshaped in the aftermath of World War I, the Zionist movement submitted a document to the Paris Peace Conference proposing that Palestine’s border with Lebanon extend north of Sidon. This would put the basin of the Litani River inside the state it intended to establish on Palestinian soil. “Israel considers its essential war to be the war over water resources,” Riad al-Assaad, a Lebanese civil engineer who has spent years mapping the south, told MEE. The Hasbani, a tributary of the Jordan River that flows through Lebanon, the occupied Golan Heights and northern Israel, “is the main theft Israel has committed”, Assaad said. What makes it valuable is practical: the Wazzani Spring, an integral part of the Hasbani, runs cold all year and rises high enough to descend under gravity, with no pumping, straight towards occupied Palestine. A history of Israel’s invasions of Lebanon Read More » Attempts to stop Israel’s water theft have all ended the same way. In 1953, US envoy Eric Johnston was sent to divide the Jordan basin among the states that share it. He ultimately allotted Lebanon 35 million cubic metres a year, against 400 million for Israel, 480 million for Jordan and 132 million for Syria. Lebanon rejected the plan as unjust, and did not manage to take even that; to this day, its use of the Hasbani has never exceeded one-fifth of the share Johnston gave it, according to expert assessments. After the Arab summit of 1964 resolved to control the Jordan’s headwaters - to stop Israel from drawing them south to the Negev - Israel destroyed the installations of the Hasbani-Wazzani diversion works inside Lebanon, and did the same in Syria. In the 1967 war, it seized key border water sources. In 2002, after Lebanon rebuilt a modest pumping station at the Wazzani to supply border villages, Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s prime minister, called it a cause for war. The station was eventually allowed to open, with speeches about recovering Lebanon’s water wealth, but the message was clear: Lebanon could take what it needed, not what it was owed. “And until now, we are barely taking what we need. Let alone our right,” Assaad said. Professor Ahmad el-Hajj, an expert in hydrology and water management, has spent two months mapping the effects of the current war. He has recorded 12 kilometres of the Hasbani-Wazzani system under Israeli military occupation, with the Wazzani infrastructure destroyed. Of around 155 million cubic metres a year of surface water in that basin, he said, Lebanon was previously benefitting from four: “Now it is zero.” The crucial riverbend The Litani runs 120 kilometres down the length of Lebanon from the Bekaa Valley, then turns sharply west below Beaufort Castle and heads to the sea. It is the one major river that is entirely Lebanese, from source to mouth. At the bend sits a treatment and pumping station that supplies the villages of Jabal Amel. It was built when the UN Interim Force in Lebanon first deployed in the late 1970s, in country so steep there were no roads to it; the pipes were carried in by helicopter and pack animals, Assaad said. “At this exact point, it is the closest thing to Palestine,” he said, citing a distance of fewer than three kilometres. “Israel has coveted this bend, this exact spot, for its entire life.” Assaad added: “Whoever says Israel doesn’t need water is wrong. Yes, it desalinates 600 million cubic metres [annually]. Yes, it is the most important state in the world for recycling wastewater. But with its settlement expansion, it needs water permanently.” Before it was destroyed, the Wazzani infrastructure supplied, directly or indirectly, around 42 villages, including a pumping station in Markaba that was hit this past July in what the UN flagged as a case of civilian infrastructure being targeted. The villages that drank from these systems - such as Khiam, Kfar Kila, Odaisseh, Houla and Blida - appeared in satellite analysis published by Israeli media earlier this year with more than 80 percent of their buildings destroyed. Nasser Nasrallah, who once led the Litani River National Authority and now heads a local NGO focused on sustainable development, told MEE that a multimillion-dollar project to bring Litani water to southern villages - more than two-thirds of which had been built before the war - was derailed by the conflict. He added: “Because Israel came in with war these two years and wrecked the project, the project was delayed - and we are losing.” In late October, the Litani authority filed a criminal complaint against Israel with the public prosecutor in Nabatieh over the pollution of the river. It has been referred to local police for further investigation. Pattern of destruction What has emerged in recent months is an ominous pattern: facilities that were rebuilt with the help of aid groups after the 2024 escalation have been decimated again in the current war. In Debaal, in Tyre district, a well and solar array that served around 5,800 people was rehabilitated by the Norwegian Refugee Council after the 2024 war, with the project completed by the end of last year, according to municipal officials. Within months, it was destroyed again in a direct Israeli strike. “The water situation in the village was better before the war,” Haydar Fawaz, the deputy head of the municipal council, told MEE. “Now one station needs electricity and another needs maintenance, and families are buying trucked water they never used to buy.” In nearby Froun, a reservoir was destroyed this past March, along with the solar system powering the village’s well, which served nearly 3,000 people. Mohammad Makki, who heads the municipality’s displacement and disaster committee, told MEE that more than 270 solar panels had been installed by an aid organisation in 2025, as part of a $70,000 initiative to revamp the local energy system; that project has now been severely set back. 'In at least several incidents the damaged or destroyed facilities were located in large open areas without clearly identifiable military targets' - Report by Oxfam and other monitoring groups Meanwhile, in Debel, a Christian village in Bint Jbeil district, one resident - who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of Israeli repercussions - told MEE that after Israeli forces hit the public water network earlier this year, the village had no supply for more than two weeks, during which time people fell back on private wells. Surveillance footage later showed Israeli soldiers destroying the solar array that powered the village’s water system. Months later, the resident said, “the system has still not been repaired”. The pattern of destruction extends far beyond these three villages. This past March, Oxfam noted that Israeli forces were hitting water and sanitation infrastructure across southern Lebanon, including by dropping bombs “near sites that were being rehabilitated after having been destroyed or damaged in the last war”. Of the 19 water facilities that Oxfam and its partners were responsible for rehabilitating - infrastructure serving up to 60,000 people - six were damaged in 2025, the organisation noted. A report last year by Oxfam, Action Against Hunger and the monitoring group Insecurity Insight documented at least 26 pumping stations and 28 pipeline networks damaged or destroyed across southern Lebanon. “In at least several incidents the damaged or destroyed facilities were located in large open areas without clearly identifiable military targets,” the report stated, citing significant damage to the Wazzani system and the associated Maisat water pumping station, which serves around 150,000 people across 30 towns and villages. State utility worker Bahij Abdallah shows a picture of his injury, caused by an Israeli attack on the water station he was operating, in September 2026 (MEE/Zaynab Mayladan) Insecurity Insight has since logged at least a dozen further incidents. Its director, Christina Wille, told New Lines Magazine that the repetition “points to a pattern”, suggesting “a deliberate strategy rather than isolated or incidental damage”. Naji Kehdy, a Lebanese researcher in hydrogeology, told MEE that looking at the types of facilities hit proves nothing by itself. What raises the probability of deliberate targeting is the pattern, including repeated damage to the small, specific components that keep water systems functioning (such as solar panels, chlorination units and pumps); the targeting of facilities that are nowhere near military sites; and the precision and repetition of strikes on water infrastructure. Under international humanitarian law, drinking-water installations are civilian objects that are supposed to have special protections. Back in Ebel el-Saqi, Abdallah notes how high the costs have become in his line of work. One colleague was killed by an Israeli air strike en route to his job, while a municipal councillor and a municipal employee in Kfarshuba were abducted by Israeli forces while switching on the village water station. “Our work is very dangerous,” Abdallah said. “We’re carrying our lives in our hands.” Exacerbated by drought The destruction has arrived at the worst possible time. Lebanon is in what the Litani River Authority describes as its most significant drought in more than 65 years, with close to 90 percent of Lebanon’s springs dried up. According to the Red Cross, the vast majority of Lebanese households are in a state of moderate to high water insecurity, with millions of people facing severe shortages. The effects of drought and broken pipes compound each other, Kehdy said. Less rain means less water soaking back into the ground, which means lower water tables and weaker springs. Broken infrastructure means less public water. Both push people towards private wells, lowering the water table further. On the coast, pumping too hard can pull seawater into coastal aquifers, a problem that can persist for years after the rain returns and pipes are fixed. Living on pavements, bathing in the sea: Lebanon's displaced face winter without shelter Read More » When there is less water, whatever is in it becomes more concentrated. In Lebanon, the National Council for Scientific Research recently tested 134 soil samples across the south and the Bekaa Valley, and recorded several areas where the soil held far more phosphorus than it should, “suggesting possible links to white phosphorus munitions”. Chromium, which can be toxic, exceeded safe agricultural limits in nearly half the samples. The contaminated land is not comprised of empty hillsides. It contains olive groves, orchards, tobacco fields and irrigated ground. The study counted more than 8,200 farmers directly affected, and some 654,000 people living in more than 200 villages in the area. Hajj, the hydrology expert who has been mapping the crisis, said around two-thirds of the war zone sits over land that would quickly carry contaminants into the groundwater supply. But his map is one of risk: it indicates where samples should urgently be taken, not where contamination has been proven. A systematic groundwater sampling process, following the contours of his map, has not taken place. The SLWE’s own assessment warns that explosions may open new fractures in rock surfaces, change how groundwater moves, and weaken springs, while explosive residues, heavy metals, hydrocarbons and rocket fuel “may migrate rapidly through South Lebanon’s karst aquifers”. Daher, the water establishment’s director general, is blunter about the limits of what is known. His teams test for certain things, but without knowing what Israel is dropping, they are not necessarily testing for the right things. What really worries him is the risk that various contaminants are going undetected. Soil testing falls to the agriculture ministry, while water testing belongs to the water establishment. Nobody compiles the results in one place, SLWE officials told MEE. According to Kehdy, without the necessary testing being done, it is impossible to determine whether or how significantly local groundwater has been contaminated by Israel’s wars. If a limestone aquifer is contaminated by heavy metals, it is effectively impossible to clean because of the deep cracks that can’t be flushed out, Kehdy said. Money and time can fix water pipes; they cannot restore a devastated aquifer. Villages empty In Froun, the village pond is full. It is as old as the village itself, dating back to its roots as a tiny farming community. Everyone here has memories attached to it: swimming in the pond, drawing water from it, washing dishes at its edge, carrying water home on donkeys, irrigating mint. A plaque by the pond notes that it was restored a decade ago with Italian funding and money from Lebanon’s reconstruction council. Filled from rainfall and road runoff, it survived the war. This year, its water level is unusually high - and not because of rain. “The situation would actually be different if agriculture was still active,” said Makki, the head of the local disaster committee. “The pond would probably be dry, because people would draw the water for irrigation. Since there are no longer many farms, the water remains here for longer.” Mohammad Makki, who heads the local displacement and disaster committee, goes through the rubble of his house in Froun, Lebanon, in August 2026 (MEE/Zaynab Mayladan) According to Makki, Froun lost around 27 of its usual 30 tonnes of honey in the 2024-25 season, as beekeepers couldn’t reach their hives, and the bees died or dispersed for lack of water. The goats that were shipped off daily for meat production disappeared, along with the seven butchers’ shops. Tobacco fields went thirsty. Olive trees went unharvested, the fruit coated in dust. A pond stays full when there is nobody left to empty it. Thirteen kilometres away, Insaf Faour, an 80-year-old resident of Debaal, describes a similar phenomenon. Decades ago, even when other villages had to purchase water, Debaal could rely on its own natural resources. In recent years, however, households have been buying two or three tanker loads a season amid severe drought conditions, she said. This year, they stopped. 'When you lose your house, you lose your memories and the beautiful things with them' - Abeer, displaced resident of Kfarsir “We didn’t buy, because water is available,” Faour told MEE. “Because there are fewer houses.” Dozens of the village’s housing units have been destroyed since 2024. With fewer homes, there are fewer people, and more water to go around. A study published in July by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, based on eight focus groups with 64 people who had recently returned to their homes in southern Lebanon, drew a distinction that the headline numbers can obscure: going back to a place is not the same as being able to live in it. Spatial return means resuming residence in a house or town; sustainable return requires the restored capacity to live, plan, work, invest and stay. Many participants were suspended between the two. “We went back, but we are not reassured,” one study participant said. Some of those surveyed said water was available, while others said there was none at all. That divergence, the researchers concluded, showed why conditions must be assessed at the level of the individual neighbourhood and town, rather than through general indicators. The study concluded: “The success of return should not be measured solely by the number of families who have returned or the number of houses repaired, but by families’ capacity for permanent stability and the restoration of normal life.” What disappears with the water From the age of seven or eight, Faour recalls carrying water home from the village spring in Debaal, walking alongside her mother. She continued relying on the spring after she married, bathing her children there, doing laundry, meeting neighbours and chatting while jars filled. When the spring ran low in the daytime, women would go at night and wait, each in turn, to fill a jar. But the water ultimately stopped flowing after a municipal well was drilled above the spring. Fawaz, the municipal official, remembers a lake he swam in as a boy. It was shelled in 2006, again in 2024, and once again this year. His recollections suddenly bring to mind another, older lake, abandoned and built over sometime after the year 2000. “When something disappears,” he said, “the memory disappears with it.” An empty water reservoir in Zawtar al-Gharbiyah, which was damaged by Israeli shelling during the war on Lebanon, is pictured in August 2026 (MEE/Zaynab Mayladan) Abeer, a resident of nearby Kfarsir, has been living in a school shelter in Beirut for seven months with her four children. Her house is gone, along with her husband’s car, and there is neither electricity nor water in what remains of their village. “I don’t want to go back and see the situation in the village,” she told MEE. “I still haven’t visited, because I don’t want to see it like this.” What she grieves is specific: a mulberry tree her mother planted in front of the family home, 30 years old, and large enough to shade the whole building. She drank her coffee under it, ate breakfast under it, and gossiped with family members there. 'At our river, there are trees that grew by themselves, wild apples, the taste of syrup. Nobody planted them. But now Israel deprived us of the river' - Abeer, resident of Kfarsir It was destroyed in Israeli attacks, along with their garden: “When you lose your house, you lose your memories and the beautiful things with them.” She also grieves her loss of access to the Litani River where it runs past her village, near Qaaqiyet al-Jisr. “At our river, there are trees that grew by themselves, wild apples, the taste of syrup. Nobody planted them. But now Israel deprived us of the river,” Abeer said. “We used to go down to it every Sunday. The whole family would gather; one brings fruits, one brings watermelon, one brings meat, and we’d grill it. We’d sit under the trees beside the water, with the watermelon cooling in the middle of the river.” Earlier this year, a video circulated of Israeli women swimming in the Hasbani River in southern Lebanon. “When I saw the video, I was fuming,” Abeer said. “They are swimming in our river when we are not allowed to go there anymore.” This article was produced as part of the 2026 Middle East Eye Fellowship.