GAZA CITY - The quiet resumption of operations at a desalination plant in the Gaza Strip last month marked a small but significant step toward restoring public services in the Palestinian territory ravaged by more than 14 months of war.
The process of restarting the plant in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, involved both Israeli and Palestinian stakeholders who could have a hand in the territory's future, especially amid renewed hopes for a ceasefire in recent days.
While its reopening has had a limited tangible impact so far, diplomats close to the project suggest it could offer a tentative roadmap for Gaza's post-war administration.
Since being reconnected to Israel's electricity grid, the station has been producing approximately 16,000 cubic metres of water per day, according to UNICEF.
It serves more than 600,000 Gaza residents through tankers or the networks of Deir el-Balah and Khan Yunis governorates in central and southern Gaza, respectively.
"Its production capacity remains limited in the face of immense needs," an official within the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority (PENRA) told AFP.
Residents of the devastated Palestinian territory have struggled since the early days of the war between Israel and Hamas to secure even basic necessities, including food and clean water.
Human Rights Watch last week accused Israel of committing "acts of genocide" in Gaza by restricting water access, a claim denied by Israeli authorities.
The WASH Cluster, which brings together humanitarian organisations in the water sector, reports that distribution of water has become very complex in Gaza.
The pipelines transporting water have been damaged, leaving Gazans many of whom are living in makeshift shelters after being displaced by bombardments without any means of storing the essential resource.
The plant is one of three such seawater processing facilities in the Gaza Strip, which before the war met around 15 percent of the 2.4 million residents' needs.
In the months following the outbreak of war, sparked by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the plant operated at minimal capacity, relying on solar panels and generators amid a persistent scarcity of fuel in Gaza.
It could fully resume operations only after reconnecting to one of the power lines supplied by Israel, which charges the Palestinian Authority for the electricity.