Briefing: Environmental degradation, climate change and genocide in Gaza
The world is witnessing a genocide in Gaza. In addition to the extreme loss of life, restrictions on humanitarian access and forced displacement, Gaza has also suffered devastating environmental degradation and is being impacted by the climate crisis. CRIN's latest briefing considers the combined impact of Israel’s bombardment since 7 October 2023, environmental degradation and climate change on Gaza’s children, as well as the need for international legal action to address the effects.
Violence against children in armed conflict is at an unprecedented level. Children’s rights are being routinely violated with the UN verifying over 41,000 grave violations against children last year. The reality is that this figure is much higher. Alongside this, children are facing the impacts of the climate crisis. These crises are not happening in isolation; they are interrelated.
Children impacted by armed conflict also face impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, and that interrelation has a critical impact on child rights. Conflict is a driver of environmental degradation and climate change. Explosive weapons in particular destroy vital infrastructure including water systems, create rubble containing hazardous materials and damage the natural environment. Modern warfare is highly carbon intensive, contributing significant emissions into the atmosphere at a time when these must be curbed.
Degradation of the environment - such as diversion of water sources -increases the risk of conflict over natural resources and farm land while leaving the natural environment more vulnerable to the changing climate.
The climate crisis is leading to more extreme weather events, higher temperatures and more erratic rainfalls. This is degrading the environment, damaging and destroying farmland and forcing people from their homes. This is leading to more armed conflict over increasingly scarce land and resources.
These three factors are highly interconnected, each one fueling the others. Yet international law, bodies and institutions rarely recognise this. Siloed international bodies, systems, processes, policies and laws fail to address their combined impact to the detriment of children. Given the growing impact on children, this must change.
The genocide in Gaza
CRIN’s first briefing on this topic is on the genocide in Gaza.
Introduction
In Gaza today the world is witnessing a genocide. Those who have survived are being denied life saving aid including food and medicines. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both published extensive reports which concluded that the Israeli state has been genocidal in its actions, as have numerous UN experts and legal scholars. The UN Secretary General's report on Children and Armed Conflict (published in 2024) described the scale of death and destruction as ‘shocking and unprecedented’ while the 2025 report stated that they were ‘deeply concerned by the significant rise in grave violations in the Gaza Strip’. More than 50,000 children have been killed and injured by Israel, 95% of schools have been damaged and 1.7 million children are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Much of the international attention and condemnation has focused understandably on the loss of life, restrictions on humanitarian access and forced displacement. What has received less attention is the devastating environmental degradation Gaza has suffered since 7 October, the effect of which is inflicting conditions which are also unsurvivable. This briefing seeks to highlight how environmental degradation resulting from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has impacted on children. It argues that the scale of the impact constitutes a war crime while considering the ways this degradation has massively compromised Palestinians’ ability to mitigate the impacts of climate change, including extreme weather events in Gaza.
Gaza’s environmental context prior to 7 October 2023
Palestinian children living in Gaza have long suffered from illegal actions and policies inflicted by Israel. They live under the shadow of the wall, cutting them off from the outside world. The unlawful blockade imposed by Israel means vital supplies struggle to enter Gaza. Hamas has also not worked in children’s best interest in how they have run Gaza. As a result, environmental degradation has been scarring Gaza long before the current conflict. A 2020 UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report on the state of the environment in Gaza found that it was facing a water crisis, that human health was being impacted by the release of untreated sewage and that freshwater courses were being polluted by waste from Palestinian towns and Israeli settlements. Further compounding this issue is the impact of climate change. Gaza is situated in a particularly vulnerable location in the eastern Mediterranean, described as a climate ‘hotspot’ vulnerable to extremes in weather.
Conflict and environment in the international legal context
The two greatest threats facing children today are the climate crisis and armed conflict. Those experiencing both face an existential emergency. The third factor children must contend with is environmental degradation - combined, they create an interconnected triple-crisis. Climate change, armed conflict and environmental degradation fuel each other and are highly interconnected, seriously impacting upon children’s rights. Multiple bodies of international law look to address each issue, while laws relating to conflict recognise the importance of guarding against environmental degradation in armed conflict.
Within the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I protects against ‘widespread, long-term and severe damage. This protection includes a prohibition of the use of methods or means of warfare which are intended or may be expected to cause such damage to the natural environment and thereby to prejudice the health or survival of the population’.
The Rome Statute, which is the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC), contains the criminalisation of environmental degradation in conflict within Article 8: ‘Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.’
While there are legal linkages between conflict and environmental degradation their relationship to climate change is not recognised to the same extent in international law. Within the child rights agenda the interaction between conflict, environmental degradation and climate change is recognised within General Comment 26 from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. It notes that environmental degradation ‘increase[s] children’s risk of facing grave rights violations’ and recognises the linkages between these factors and their impact on children’s rights.
Gaza and the triple-crisis
Prior to the present bombardment on Gaza, its environment had been steadily degraded through decades of repeated escalations in violence, the effects of climate change and environmental governance constraints (including controls on water supplies and solid waste management systems) resulting from Israel’s illegal occupation. Within this context, Gaza’s children could ill afford further damage to their environment - but Israel’s military bombardment since the attacks on 7 October has brought the territory to near total destruction. The UNEP preliminary assessment of environmental impacts published in June 2024 provides a grim assessment of the conflict’s impact.
As of June 2024:
Almost all environmental management systems in Gaza had been interrupted by the bombardment.
All sources of water to Palestinians had been disrupted. Displacement and access issues were placing remaining supplies under strain. Desperation for water led to the use of agricultural wells which were further exposed to pesticides and other chemicals.
Solid waste management systems had been significantly disrupted.
The extensive use of explosive weapons in urban areas had generated approximately 39 million tons of debris (much of which is contaminated with hazardous substances including unexploded ordnance, asbestos and human remains).
An estimated 42.6% of farmland had been damaged.
This is a stark illustration of the scale of environmental degradation in the first months of the bombardment of Gaza. Since then, the environmental destruction has continued. This intensive environmental destruction resulting from bombardment must also be looked at in the broader context of the climate crisis. The Mediterranean Basin (which includes Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories) has been described as a ‘hotspot’ for climate change, vulnerable to shrinking water resources and ‘longer and more intensive drought spells’. The Israeli bombardment of Gaza has severely disrupted all work to address the climate crisis in Gaza including several projects aimed at mitigating the impact of climate change, including water desalination plants. Furthermore, the military action itself generated significant carbon emissions. Research from Queen Mary University of London showed that in the first 120 days of war emissions exceeded the annual emissions of 26 individual countries.
The combination of brutal warfare, environmental degradation and climate change will have short-, medium- and long-term consequences for Gaza’s children. The lack of clean water poses a particular risk to children and women, increasing the risk of diseases spreading and exacerbating the public health crisis. UNICEF reported that in December 2023 ‘[c]ases of diarrhea in children under five years of age rose from 48,000 to 71,000 in just one week starting 17 December, equivalent to 3,200 new cases of diarrhea per day’. In the medium to long term there is a risk of already vulnerable water sources being contaminated as sewage enters the water courses through the porous rock which Gaza is built on. This is not an accidental consequence of the war.
On 9 October 2023, Israel’s then Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant announced a total siege policy stating: ‘[C]omplete siege on Gaza…. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed.’ In doing so, Israel cut off crucial supplies for survival as well as for mitigating environmental damage. In cutting off fuel it also reduced the ability for Palestinians to draw groundwater and the use of desalination plants. Since the assault began, it has been reported that half of Gaza’s water sites have been damaged or destroyed.
The huge quantities of contaminated debris pose multiple risks. Significant quantities of unexploded ordinance is an immediate and long-term risk with the UN Mine Action Service estimating that between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 bombs have not gone detonated. Even when the unexploded ordnance is cleared it is estimated that it will take 15 years to clear all debris, largely generated by Israel’s extensive use of explosive weapons. While awaiting clearance, it will continue to pose a risk with hazardous materials contained within it, including exposure to asbestos. The rubble will also contribute to air pollution, potentially for years while it is cleared. Gaza currently has no air pollution stations to monitor how severe it is - but the risks it poses are well known for children. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that children are most at risk from air pollution with an increased likelihood of developing asthma, acute lower respiratory infections, autism spectrum disorder along with increased long-term risks including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease and lung cancer.
In the long-term, and in addition to the impact on children's health from the environmental degradation inflicted on Gaza, there has been serious interruption to the work addressing Gaza’s particular vulnerability to the climate crisis. The destruction incurred in Gaza has damaged ecosystems, agricultural lands, biodiversity and natural spaces. The limited green spaces which did exist in Gaza have been damaged. These are crucial for children's mental and physical health as well as acting as carbon sinks. Their repair and recovery will take decades.
At a time when reliance on fossil fuel needs to be urgently reduced, Israel has been selling gas via a pipeline that goes through Palestinian waters, without Palestinians’ consent. A Global Witness report suggests that a new gas deal between Israel, Egypt and the EU is likely to make the EU complicit in breaches of international law. All of this leaves Gaza even more vulnerable to the changing climate.
International response
The scale of the killing and maiming of children along with the denial of humanitarian aid has understandably dominated international attention. Yet, the combined impact of the bombardment of Gaza, the environmental degradation suffered and the growing impact of climate change will also catastrophic effects on children in the short-, medium- and long-term. The UNEP’s preliminary assessment provides stark reading as to the conflict’s environmental impact and subsequent risks. Since the assessment’s publication, there has been extensive further degradation of the environment in Gaza. Given the seriousness of the implications of environmental degradation, the international community must also hold perpetrators to account for this so as to deter further degradation and to dissuade those in other contexts from similar actions. Alongside accountability, reparations should be made for the damage caused to enable Gaza’s recovery in the long-term.
The ICC issued arrest warrants for several individuals involved in the conflict in 2024. The statement issued by Karim A.A Khan KC states there are reasonable grounds to believe these individuals bear criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Among the crimes alleged are murder as a crime against humanity, rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity, starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population and wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health. A further statement made in November 2024, while not giving specific details, highlights restrictions on food and water which contributed to creating conditions of life likely to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza.
Despite the extensive documented evidence of the environmental destruction and its impact upon Gaza’s civilian population, the ICC has yet to specifically issue any arrest warrants in relation to environmental crimes as defined under Article 8(2)(b)(iv) in the Rome Statute. This reflects the high threshold for prosecutions to occur, indeed throughout the history of the ICC it has not yet prosecuted individuals under Article 8(2)(b)(iv).
In South Africa v. Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the court’s advisory opinions and orders of 26 January 2024 states that Israel should desist from the deprivation of adequate water, but this case did not consider wider environmental consequences of the conflict. In a separate case with the ICJ that predated the 7 October attacks and subsequent war, an advisory opinion does consider environmental harm caused by the control of natural resources - but this assessment is not in relation to the current destruction of Gaza.
Other international accountability mechanisms have barely touched on the combined impact of armed conflict, the resulting environmental degradation and the additional threat of climate change. The Committee on the Rights of the Child made a powerful statement in February 2024 but with no specific reference to the environment. It did commit, however, to ‘send Israel an additional list of issues on the situation of children in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023’ potentially giving opportunity to question Israel over its actions including in relation to General Comment 26. In the longer term, it is important that, as outlined in General Comment 26, that States provide ‘effective remedies to redress both foreseeable and actual harm’. This should not be forgotten if Gaza’s surviving children are to receive justice and rebuild their shattered lives.
The UN Secretary General’s annual report on children and armed conflict also highlights the level of violence and grave violations against children, but has not to date considered in depth the wider impact on children of conflict leading to significant environmental degradation in this or other conflicts.
Mechanisms to monitor the environment must be strengthened by international bodies, including the installation of air pollution monitoring stations to better track the environmental impact on Gaza.
Given the immediate, medium-term and long-term impacts on Gaza’s children - as Israel’s bombardment continues to degrade the environment they live in, as well as increasing their land’s vulnerability to climate change - these international mechanisms must increase their focus on this connected triple-crisis. There must be action to hold those responsible to account and reparations for those impacted.
Recommendations
The above analysis paints a stark picture of minimal attention and inaction on a crucial element of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and its impact on children. Steps to address this gap are well within the grasp of the international community. The international legal framework and human rights bodies already have many of the laws and systems in place. They must now be utilised.
The ICC has not yet stated if its case against individuals will include crimes relating to environmental degradation in relation to the conflict in Gaza. It has however recently published a draft policy on environmental crimes under the Rome Statute. This is a welcome development. Based on the draft policy, CRIN believes there are grounds for the ICC to pursue an investigation regarding a breach of Article 8 (2)(b)(iv). This would be an important step for accountability in Gaza and in sending a clear message to other parties in conflicts that environmental damage will not be tolerated. As the draft policy states, doing so is important ‘to combat impunity for offences related to the environment’.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child should raise with Israel the environmental degradation inflicted on Gaza both prior to the current conflict and since. This would be in line with General Comment 26 and would allow scrutiny of the medium to long-term consequences of the conflict, the environmental degradation caused and its longer term impact in relation to climate change. In line with General Comment 26, steps should be taken to ensure reparations are paid for the damage caused.
The body of evidence as to environmental degradation in Gaza is extensive despite limited access for independent monitoring. Despite this, it has received limited attention from the international community. There must be greater interaction and engagement between different international bodies working in this area, including international courts, human rights committees, UN climate and environment bodies and Special Representatives (including the Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict). This is crucial to understand the full impact on Gaza’s children and to ensure appropriate international action in response to the short-, medium- and long-term consequences of this triple-crisis.
The current denial of life saving humanitarian aid must also end. Supplies must be allowed to enter Gaza to address immediate urgent needs. Alongside this, the illegal occupation and blockade of Gaza - which has long prevented a variety of materials from entering the area -must end in order for the environmental damage caused can be repaired. Gaza’s rebuilding must consider environmental health and climate resilience. This should be Palestinian-led and supported by the international community.
For a full list of references cited, download the briefing.