Was the writing on the wall? The report that warned of the damage that sewage from Gaza would cause to desalination plants

Nearly a decade ago, a government company warned that the discharge of raw sewage from the Gaza Strip could damage water quality near Israel's desalination plants. The report published by the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research institute in 2017 did not predict one-to-one the crisis that has been shaking Israel's water sector in recent days, but it documents exactly the mechanism that is at its center today: pollution coming from the Gaza Strip and damaging the plants that provide about 75% of Israel's drinking water.

The Ministry of Energy updated that according to a situation assessment held on Thursday in the afternoon, the water sector is operating normally, and in the last hour another desalination plant was added to operation: Sorek A. Water supply to households and agriculture continues as usual. Minister of Energy Eli Cohen stated that the water supply to homes was not affected throughout the entire incident and yesterday the water supply to agriculture was even renewed.

Earlier today, the Water Authority stated that the desalination plants in Ashkelon and Ashdod are still shut down, the Sorek B and Palmachim plants are operating at partial capacity, and the Sorek A plant is working intermittently. In an attempt to solve the problem of water turbidity at the desalination plants, the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) recruited a tugboat from EAPC for an experiment intended to help resume the operation of the plant in Ashkelon. As part of the experiment, sea water is mixed near the intake pipe to allow the resumption of flow.

Zalul to COGAT: allow treatment of Gaza's sewage

The Zalul association appealed to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Major General Yoram Halevy to intervene. According to Dr. Yuval Arbel, Deputy CEO of Sea and Government Relations at Zalul, there is a sewage treatment plant in the Gaza Strip in an area currently under IDF control - but the tankers that pump sewage in the Strip are not getting access to it.

In the letter, Zalul CEO Mor Gilboa asks that COGAT allow the tankers to discharge the sewage at the sewage treatment plant instead of discharging it into the sea. Zalul is aware that a number of parties have appealed to the government, to COGAT, and to the American headquarters in Kiryat Gat with a similar request, including the EcoPeace Middle East organization, but the appeals have not yet been answered.

Gilboa further writes: "In order to allow the desalination plants to return to operation, we ask you to act without delay to treat the prevention of sewage discharge into the sea by all means at your disposal and to work for the rehabilitation of Gaza's destroyed sewage system." Copies of the letter were also sent to Minister of Defense Israel Katz and Minister of Agriculture Avi Dichter.

The EcoPeace organization stated that it warned about the need for urgent treatment of the sewage and sanitation issue in Gaza as part of a discussion held on the subject at the Kiryat Gat headquarters as early as November 2025. "Although we understand that the Israeli Water Authority supported our position, the government ministers in Israel ignored the warning, despite the basic fact that pollution does not recognize borders," the organization stated.

The researchers warned: the problem will worsen as Gaza's population grows

The 2017 report by the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research institute examined real water samples at the intake point of the Ashkelon desalination plant, located only about 4.5 km from the sewage discharge points on the Gaza coast. The samples showed measurable bacterial pollution, and satellite images documented plumes of organic matter moving from Gaza northwards. The researchers wrote even then that the problem is expected to worsen as the population in the Strip grows - and warned of possible damage to other desalination plants as well.

Arbel from Zalul explains simply the mechanism that links sewage water and algae growth: "The sewage not only feeds the algae like fertilizer - it also provides them with organic matter that allows them to grow even at night without sunlight." According to him, this is what turns normal algae bloom into a bloom of abnormal intensity.

Why did Gaza's sewage become relevant precisely now? Arbel adds that, in fact, during the war, almost no sewage flowed from Gaza to the sea, because there was no electricity and no water, and the sewage system was almost completely disabled. Only recently, because the water infrastructure in Gaza is returning to operation, the sewage is also returning to flow through overflowing cesspits and open channels, and reaching the sea. "The algae started in Egypt, and there is probably an unclear contribution of organic matter even before Gaza," he says, "but it would not have reached us if the algae had not received more nutrients along the way."

Arbel points to another factor that may explain the timing of the problem: the storm that hit Israel's coast last weekend. According to him, it is possible that the storm moved organic matter that had settled on the seabed, and swept it upwards - which further fueled the algae bloom. Galit Cohen, former CEO of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and currently a senior researcher at the INSS and director of Israel's Climate Fund, also estimates that what is happening in Gaza has a direct impact on Israel. "The pollution from there spills over to us, whether it is sea pollution or air pollution," she says. "We need to deal with what is happening in Gaza - it is not for the Gazans, it is first and foremost for us."

Senior officials in the water sector estimated that sewage water from Gaza contributed to the growth of the algae that led to the paralysis of the desalination plants, but that they are not the main reason for them. The Ministry of Energy stated that "according to the findings in our possession, the source of the algae is the Nile, and it moves according to the weather." No response has yet been received from the Water Authority.