The Gaza Strip, a small coastal enclave home to more than 2 million Palestinians, has long been at the epicentre of conflict, displacement, and human tragedy. However, recent escalations have brought Gaza not only into the global spotlight as a humanitarian disaster but also as a focal point in discussions of war crimes and a less-discussed but increasingly relevant concept—ecocide (Selby & Hulme, 2022)
Since October 2023, Gaza has been under an Israeli blockade that restricts the movement of people, goods, fuel, and medical supplies. The blockade, combined with heavy military aggression, has created not only a man-made humanitarian crisis but also an environmental devastation that could have long-term consequences for both the region and the world. The destruction of water systems, agriculture, and essential ecological balances raise an urgent question: Are we witnessing not just war crimes but an act of ecocide? (Physicians for Human Rights Israel, 2025)
While war crimes focus on immediate human suffering and violations of the laws of armed conflict, ecocide is a broader and more novel legal concept. Polly Higgins, a British barrister gave an definition of this term in 2010, defining it as ‘extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory [… ] to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished’ (Mehta & Merz, 2014).
Though not yet codified as an international crime under the Rome Statute, the legal and academic momentum toward recognizing ecocide as a prosecutable offense continues to grow (Kistenkas, 2021). In the context of Gaza, the case for ecocide has gained particular urgency due to documented patterns of environmental devastation resulting from prolonged military operations and blockades. Repeated bombardments have targeted essential water infrastructure, including desalination plants and sewage treatment facilities, causing untreated wastewater to flow directly into the Mediterranean Sea and contaminating Gaza’s coastal aquifer with saline intrusion and toxic substances—damage considered by experts to be irreversible in some cases (Yavuz & Unal, 2025). Simultaneously, agricultural systems have collapsed under the destruction of farmland, greenhouses, and irrigation networks, with the deliberate targeting of food production infrastructure contributing to acute food insecurity and the dismantling of local food sovereignty (Hassoun et al., 2025). The accumulation of waste and its open-air incineration, exacerbated by the breakdown of municipal services, has led to increased air pollution and the release of hazardous toxins, while the deployment of munitions such as white phosphorus has further compromised soil and respiratory health (Yavuz & Unal, 2025).
Fernando Wang (PT, MSc)
Respiratory and Maxillo facial Physiotherapist, Bonneveine-St Joseph Foundation Hospital, Marseille, France
Photo by FADI ABUQARE: https://www.pexels.com/photo/aerial-view-of-dirt-road-on-desert-3469467/
The environmental impact of warfare is not confined within Gaza’s borders. As experts have warned, modern conflicts generate “multiple, compound and overlapping environmental effects” that threaten ecosystems, public health and livelihoods through their regional and global impact (Yavuz & Unal, 2025). In the Gaza Strip, the deliberate destruction of water infrastructure has released millions of litres of untreated sewage and industrial waste, endangering not only local groundwater but also the wider Eastern Mediterranean basin; indeed, more than a quarter of Wadi Gaza, one of the most important coastal wetlands of the Eastern Mediterranean, has already been destroyed (Yavuz & Unal, 2025). The collapse of Gaza’s sanitation systems has allowed pathogens and toxins to enter shared waters and even to re‑spark vaccine‑derived poliovirus (Tulchinsky et al., 2025) outbreaks that “threatened communities in Gaza, Israel, and neighbouring areas”. Public‑health specialists emphasize that, because Israelis and Palestinians inhabit an interlinked ecosystem, cooperation in managing wastewater and preventing contamination is essential to protect crops and water supplies across the region (Tulchinsky et al., 2025). In other words, environmental damage in Gaza readily transcends political boundaries: toxins released into air, soil and water can reach Israel, Egypt and the wider Mediterranean (Tulchinsky et al., 2025). For this reason, scholars argue that the ecological devastation unfolding in Gaza should be understood as a regional—if not global—crisis, and that international legal frameworks must treat such transboundary harm as a prosecutable offence.
Despite the systematic devastation, acts of resistance persist. Palestinian environmental defenders and humanitarian personnel continue—at great personal risk—to record the scale of ecological destruction and advocate for restoration in a territory where survival itself is under siege. Simultaneously, international legal experts and civil society organizations intensify their demands for the codification of ecocide as a prosecutable crime under international law. An increasing number of nations—particularly in the Global South—are aligning behind this imperative, recognizing that unchecked environmental destruction is both a legal void and a moral failure (Oliveira et al., 2025).
The suffering inflicted upon Gaza’s population and its obliterated ecosystems is not an unavoidable consequence of war—it is the result of deliberate, strategic decisions. These are not collateral effects; they are acts of calculated aggression, inflicted with full knowledge of their enduring and irreversible consequences. And they must be called what they are: punishable offences, not unfortunate inevitabilities.
What is unfolding in Gaza transcends the language of military operations or humanitarian concern. It is an indictment of the global legal and moral order. This is not merely a conflict—it is the deliberate annihilation of a living system, both human and ecological. War crimes extinguish lives; ecocide annihilates the possibility of life. When these crimes converge—as they do with alarming clarity in Gaza—the result is not just the destruction of a people or a place, but the collapse of the ethical foundation upon which international law claims to stand.
The international community now faces a stark and irreversible choice: remain silent and complicit in the face of environmental warfare, or assert the primacy of justice—for people and for planet. The time to act is not in the future. The time is now.
AI Declaration
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools were used in the preparation of the manuscript “Gaza and the Crimes of War and Ecocide: A Crisis of Humanity and Environment” exclusively to support language-related tasks. Specifically, AI was employed to assist with correcting English grammar, syntax, and phrasing, as the author is not a native English speaker, and to ensure that the citations and references were formatted according to the APA 7th edition guidelines. No part of the intellectual content, analysis, or interpretation presented in this paper was generated by AI. The responsibility for the ideas, arguments, and conclusions remains entirely with the author.
References
Header image by Mohammed Ibrahim on Unsplash
Selby, J., & Hulme, M. (2022). Gaza: Climate, water, and war. Global Environmental Politics, 22(1), 10–30. https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00649
Physicians for Human Rights Israel. (2025, July). Genocide in Gaza [PDF]. PHRI. https://www.phr.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Genocide-in-Gaza-PHRI-English.pdf
Mehta, S., & Merz, P. (2014). Ecocide – a new crime against peace? European Citizens Initiative End Ecocide. https://www.endecocide.org/ecocide-a-new-crime-against-peace/
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