IN THE MIDDLE East, water is more than a resource. Water is a source of power, and in many cases, a weapon of war. The Gaza Strip is the most urgent and devastating example.

The survival of Ahmad (whose last name we have withheld for security reasons), like hundreds of thousands of others in Gaza, depends on gaining access to basic humanitarian resources, especially water.

“Sometimes a water truck comes to our area, so we fill some gallons. When it doesn’t, we’re forced to drink regular water,” Ahmad told us and our colleagues at Churches for Middle East Peace over WhatsApp in July. The “regular water” he refers to is untreated groundwater pulled from local wells, risky to consume even before the most recent war. “My body didn’t take it. I got very sick,” he told us. “But we had no other option.”