The IDF Just Destroyed a Key Rafah Water Facility Rachel Corrie Spent Her Last Month of Life Defending

“I was shocked when I saw the video. It’s not just that they targeted this water facility; it’s the fact that they planted explosives, celebrated the act on Instagram.... It's deeply cruel."

Ryan Grim and Hind Khoudary contributed reporting.

On Friday, I discovered a video posted on Instagram by an Israeli soldier from the 601st Combat Engineering Battalion, showing the calculated demolition of a chief water facility in Rafah. The video, in three parts, shows Israeli soldiers planting explosives inside and around the water pumps of a facility in the occupied city. The video—which is captioned in Hebrew, “Destruction of the Tal Sultan water reservoir in honor of Shabbat”—ends with footage of the water facility being blown up. The soundtrack is a song produced by soldiers of the 51st Golani Brigade with lyrics like, “We will burn Gaza… shake all of Gaza… for every house you destroy we will destroy ten.”

The water facility, also known as the Canada Well, is situated in Tel Sultan Neighborhood, in the western part of Rafah city. U.S. human rights activist Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death in 2003 by an Israeli military bulldozer while attempting to prevent demolitions in the city, spent much of her time during the last month of her life helping to protect the municipality workers at the Canada Well. The workers were repairing damage done to the well due to the Israeli military bulldozers in the area, according to Gordon Murray, one of her fellow activists.

A report Corrie wrote just weeks before her murder lays out the work she and other activists with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)—“human shield work with the Rafah Municipal Water authority,” she described it—were doing with local Palestinian workers to protect the well and local water system. “The workers are currently building a barrier surrounding the Canada Well…in the Canada-Tel El Sultan area of Rafah,” she wrote. “This well along with the El Iskan Well…was destroyed by Israeli bulldozers on 30th January [2003]. On several occasions the internationals have witnessed shooting from military vehicles on the settler road which passes along the northwestern edge of the sand-dunes and agricultural areas on the outskirts of Rafah.” 

Corrie’s report added that the Canada Well had the capacity to produce 35 percent of Rafah’s total water supply back then. The defense of the water supply, she noted, led “to ISM activists coming under fire.”

The soldiers who blew up the water system this week were carrying out a strategy that has been explicitly articulated by the Netanyahu government. In October, an adviser to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Giora Eiland, laid out the strategy to deprive Palestinians not just of water from outside Gaza, but to disrupt their ability to pump and purify water locally, on the IDF’s radio station, GLZ. “Israel, as I understand, closed the water supply to Gaza,” said Eiland in a Hebrew-language interview. “But there are many wells in Gaza, which contain water which they treat locally, since originally they contain salt. If the energy shortage in Gaza makes it so that they stop pumping out water, that's good. Otherwise we have to attack these water treatment plants in order to create a situation of thirst and hunger in Gaza, and I would say, forewarn of an unprecedented economical and humanitarian crisis.”

The interviewer pushed back. “Giora, I want to check that I understand correctly. You are saying—get the residents of Gaza into thirst, into hunger. These are the terms you are using?”

“You understood correctly,” he said. “If you want to topple the Hamas regime, you won't achieve that merely through aerial attacks. And a ground invasion, it has its benefits, [but] it also comes with great risks, and it's unclear that the state of Israel needs to take these right now.”

For months, Israeli forces have been targeting vital water resources in the strip leading to starvation and, according to new reports, worsening access to clean water. Last week, the Israeli military and the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that Poliovirus has been found in Gaza’s sewage, further intensifying the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the occupied enclave. 

Our exposure of the video on Friday immediately sparked outrage, with some describing it as evidence of war crimes. The soldier quickly made his account private and deleted the stories.

The Canada well was built in 1999 with Canadian International Development Agency funding. While initial reporting, based on the soldier’s caption, called it a “reservoir,” according to Gaza’s coastal municipalities water utility, the Canada well is the main water facility in the city of Rafah and provides services to 50 percent of the city’s residents, mainly in West Rafah. 

Monther Shoblaq, Director General of the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, who oversaw the maintenance and renovation of the Canada Well, described the destruction as "scandalous evidence" of the Israeli army's deliberate targeting of water and sanitation facilities. 

Monther told Drop Site in an interview that his organization had provided the Israeli military with precise GPS coordinates for the Canada Well and all water facilities in the Strip, in coordination with the Red Cross. Despite these precautions, the well was blown up. The Canada well remained operational throughout the war until the Israeli military full invasion into the neighborhood in late May, he said. 

“The solar panels at the facility enabled water services during the war for tens of thousands of people in the area, even with the electricity shutdown,” he said.  “I was shocked when I saw the video. It’s not just that they targeted this water facility; it’s the fact that they planted explosives, celebrated the act on Instagram, and did so under the guise of honoring the Sabbath. It’s deeply cruel. This is the Canada Well in Tal al-Sultan—one of the most important water facilities in the city of Rafah.”

Caption: The Japanese government financially supported the renovation of the water facility by equipping it with solar energy panel back in 2018. Source

Monther recounts witnessing the complete destruction of one of Gaza’s vital water facilities located in West Khan Younis by the Israeli military. He requested that facility be designated a deconflicted area through OCHA and UNICEF, providing details about the employees and their families present inside. The military approved the request, and CMWU restricted access to only employees and their immediate family members. Despite this, during the Israeli military operations in Khan Younis, the facility was struck without warning, resulting in the deaths of four of its employees’ relatives. As a result, the water facility, which housed Gaza's largest water tools and equipment, was left and subsequently utterly destroyed.

In the north, too, Gaza City’s municipal government has repeatedly reported deliberate attacks on water facilities in the city. A statement by the municipality on July 15 warned that the city is experiencing “a severe water crisis, with available water amounting to only a quarter of the pre-aggression supply at best, covering only 40 percent of the city's area.” 

A BBC analysis based on satellite data from May 9, three days after the Rafah invasion, found out that 50% of Gaza's water and sanitation facilities had been damaged or destroyed since Israel began its offensive following the Oct 7 attack.

Update: Monday, July 29, 2024.

The IDF has not yet provided a comment, but, according to Haaretz, army sources said senior commanders did not approve the destruction of the facility. The military, Haaretz reported, is conducting an initial probe, after which it will determine whether to open an investigation.

An IDF spokesperson told Drop Site in an August 1 statement: “IDF forces have been operating for several weeks in the Tel Al Sultan area, to destroy terrorist infrastructures and eliminate terrorists, while mitigating damage to civilian infrastructures. The circumstances of the case in question are under review.