Right from the beginning of its rule over Gaza, Hamas has neglected the delicate water infrastructure, causing the salination of the coastal aquifer.
Gaza government is so corrupt that its employees routinely receive bribes from private companies providing essential services such as water and electricity, and therefore are incentivized to prevent improvement of these services by the government, with the added benefit that Israel is always blamed anyway.
Dozens of small private desalination companies have been a major supplier of clean water to Gazans for years, with the government supply remaining substandard.
Gazans have also relied on private water wells that they operate themselves. A selling point for many luxury apartment buildings in Gaza City has long been in-house water wells, as well as desalination and purification machinery.
Before the war, Gaza also imported large amounts of cheap bottled water from Egypt and UAE.
