Paloma de Dinechin
New Lines Magazine / April 16, 2026
Workers move under drones, repairing shattered pipelines and keeping stations running after repeated attacks.
Before leaving for work, Mohamed Bashoun says goodbye to his family as if it might be the last time. At 51, his job is simple: keep the water flowing. Each day, he drives to a pumping station in southern Lebanon — the same one where two of his colleagues were killed. They were working when the strike hit, just days before the ceasefire in November 2024. Now, Bashoun returns alone, and fighting has resumed since March 2. A fragment of the rocket still lies on site.
“No one expected a water station to be targeted,” he said quietly, turning the piece of metal in his hands. “Then it started happening, Israel began to target infrastructure.”
Once, his work was routine. Now, even stepping inside feels to him like entering a target zone. Drones circle overhead. The road is exposed. The building itself has already been hit. “Every day, I go knowing it’s dangerous,” he says.
On the wall inside the station, a large poster watches over the space. Two faces look out — the men Mohamed calls “his friends” — and above them, the logo of the South Lebanon Water Establishment. Beneath the photographs is an epitaph: “Here they were killed, where blood mixed with soil.” A date is printed below: November 18, 2024. The station was meant to be run by two people, but now it is just Bashoun.
He moves between the pipes, turning valves by hand. “No automation,” he says, “just gauges.” The system supplies water to the surrounding area. “I run, finish, leave,” he says. “What tells me they won’t strike again? [But] 70,000 people in Tyre depend on this, I can’t just leave.”
Tyre is the largest coastal city in Lebanon’s deep south. Since fighting resumed between Hezbollah and Israel, the city has been repeatedly placed under Israeli evacuation warnings, with residents urged to move further north, but it has never fully emptied. Despite strikes, it has continued to host displaced people from villages closer to the front line.
Israeli officials have indicated that further advances could involve occupying all territory up to the Litani River. Selim Catafago, an engineer at the Litani River Authority, says the river has long been of strategic interest to Israel. “The Litani has been coveted by Israel for decades,” he says. “Since the creation of the state, there have been plans to incorporate it. It’s a major water source.”
Indeed, the Litani itself is already a target. At the Taybeh wastewater treatment plant, near Bint Jbeil District, a border district in southern Lebanon, treatment of water from the Litani River has ceased. Before the war, the facility supplied up to 5 million gallons of water per day. It was struck during the 2024 fighting and only partially restored. It was due to resume operations on March 6, four days after war resumed. “Since then, we can’t go back,” says Ali Kazhem, assistant technician at the South Lebanon Water Establishment. The structure now stands in ruins, too dangerous to access. Other watercourses continue to supply the pumping stations.
Outside, Mohamed’s car is always ready for a quick escape. A large Lebanese flag hangs from it. It took more than a month to repair the station after the strike. Now it operates at barely 20% of its original capacity. Water is rationed and distributed across the town. Nearby, the ground still bears the mark of the explosion — an open scar. Mohamed pulls out his phone and scrolls through photos of what used to be there: a patch of grass, his son walking across it. Then he puts the phone away and goes back to work.
Around the station, the shutters are drawn. The usual autumn crowds are gone and the streets are nearly empty. The nearby tourism institute has been converted into a shelter for displaced families from areas nearer to the front line. Across Lebanon, nearly a fifth of the population has been forced from their homes. Two men approach the station carrying plastic jerricans. They take turns filling them, watching the flow carefully. They are displaced from Naqoura, a border village with Israel. Now, they depend on this station for drinking water.
A motorbike passes. Then another man approaches on foot. He is tense, wearing a cap and dark glasses, apparently a member of Hezbollah. He steps closer, interrupting the interview. Mohamed’s expression tightens. “Show me your documents,” the man says. “Do you have authorization?” For a moment, everything stops. Then he leaves, just as abruptly. Mohamed exhales, irritated — a familiar scene in an area under Hezbollah control.
In the old city of Tyre, a different rhythm persists. Along the seafront, fishers cast their lines. The sounds of the war carry in the distance in this Christian area, but here, people walk as if untouched by it. Walid Saleh, 61, runs a restaurant by the sea. “Last year, we had no running water for three months,” he says. “We depended entirely on tanker trucks.” On the killing of the two water workers, he shakes his head. “No one lives in a pumping station,” he says. “They don’t want to kill people.” He pauses. “Sometimes, maybe 1 in 10 dies. People go, they take pictures, they’re curious. That’s how it happens. There are warnings. They don’t target water.”
A 2025 report by Oxfam, Action Against Hunger and Insecurity Insight, however, identified at least 26 water pumping stations and 28 pipeline systems damaged or destroyed by the Israeli army — often with no nearby military targets. Since the publication of the report, Insecurity Insight has documented at least 12 additional incidents affecting water infrastructure. “While questions remain about the specific circumstances of individual cases, the repeated nature of these incidents points to a pattern. Taken together, they suggest a deliberate strategy rather than isolated or incidental damage,” says Christina Wille, director of Insecurity Insight, in comments to New Lines.
A recent strike hit the wastewater treatment plant in Marjayoun, near the Israeli border, on March 31. Another strike damaged the pumping system, affecting villages across the area. For the South Lebanon Water Establishment, which operates the facility, repairs have become a constant struggle. Restoring water to the surrounding villages is now an emergency — one made more difficult by ongoing strikes and access restrictions.
“Our facilities and assets have been and still are deliberately targeted during the 2024 war and the current hostilities,” says Wassim Daher, director of the South Lebanon Water Establishment. “Some of our main production sites have been obliterated. Others have been hit again after being repaired.” Despite the risks, teams continue to operate. “This is being done under extremely dangerous conditions,” he says. “Our staff are exposed, and in some cases directly targeted.” The establishment says it lost 16 employees in 2024, and four more since the start of the current war. Damage to water and wastewater infrastructure is now estimated at around $100 million.
In the absence of functioning infrastructure, residents have been forced to rely on alternative, often limited water sources. In many areas, water is delivered by truck. On April 8, during a distribution organized by the humanitarian group Nawraj, four trucks arrived from Beirut, two of them loaded entirely with bottled water.
In Qlayaa, a village that has refused to evacuate despite the fighting, Aline (31), adjusts her baby carrier as she walks toward St. George Church. Her 6-month-old son sleeps against her chest, despite the constant sound of drones overhead.
“When there are strikes, I try to play music for the children,” she says. “And keep dancing.” She smiles as she says it, but her face is drawn. “We’re lacking everything — especially water. I have a 2,000-liter tank, but there’s no running water anymore. We won’t last forever.”
Like other villages in the area, Qlayaa — one of around 15 Christian villages that have refused to leave despite the advance of Israeli troops — has been largely cut off since the Marjayoun pumping station was hit.
Since early March, strikes have become a daily occurrence — sometimes hourly.
Nearby, Marjayoun, once a regional hub, now feels deserted. The water station that supplies the area, along with several pipelines, has been repeatedly struck in recent weeks.
For five days, there has been no running water.
“Taking a shower takes planning,” says Maroun (28). “We take turns — my parents, my sisters. Today it’s me. Maybe tomorrow there will be water.”
In village after village, the same pattern repeats. Lebanon is known as the “water tower” of the Middle East for its rivers, rainfall and mountain-fed reserves. But in the south, especially below the Litani, keeping water flowing now depends on a handful of teams working under constant threat.
At the Marjayoun municipality building, a man opens a window on the second floor. The front line is in plain view. “Careful. Don’t get too close. No photos,” he says. Then he lowers his voice. “They use artificial intelligence. People have been targeted just for taking pictures.”
About 50 yards away, a gray trash container blocks the road. He points toward the village of Khiam. Beyond it, in an olive grove, a pipeline lies torn open.
“That’s the water line,” he says. “It was hit. We can’t go repair it. It’s too dangerous.”
On the hills above, houses are ripped open.
“That’s where the fighting is.”
Just a few hundred yards away, clashes sometimes unfold on the ground between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters.
The offices of the South Lebanon Water Establishment are in Sidon. Inside, stacks of paper pile up on desks. Phones never leave their hands. They wait for permissions, for coordination, for a green light. Nothing moves without it.
After four rejected requests, approval finally comes on April 11 to access the exact site seen from the municipality. The green light is conditional.
“I can’t go there without an escort. It’s a red zone,” says Ali Kazhem, assistant at the South Lebanon Water Establishment.
The establishment is allowed to attempt repairs with the approval of the Israeli army. An excavator moves in under supervision. Lebanese army soldiers and U.N. peacekeepers take positions on either side of the road, just below Khiam – an area that has seen heavy fighting. They begin work.
“On Thursday, we made good progress,” says Mahmoud, one of the workers. “On Friday, we could only work half a day. There were strikes nearby, and UNIFIL asked us to evacuate. We had to leave.”
“I hope we finish in two days. It’s been about 25 days without this pump working.”
On the roadside, a massive crater has ripped the ground open. Two pipes lie exposed — one for wastewater, the other for clean water. Both are severed.
A Serbian peacekeeper steps out of his vehicle and signals to the workers to regroup near the impact site. He says he cannot guarantee their safety if they spread out.
Strikes echo across the Khiam valley, visible in the distance. The front line is less than 6 miles away. An hour after arriving, a message comes through from the Israeli forces. They can no longer guarantee their safety.
Mahmoud sits on a pile of rubble, running prayer beads through his fingers. Around him, the workers continue, focused, almost indifferent. Above them, Israeli jets roar. Flares streak across the sky. No one stops.
Water systems are no longer just collateral damage. They are increasingly part of military strategy. “Water is increasingly part of the battlefield,” says Mark Zeitoun, director of the Geneva Water Hub. “We see it being used as a weapon of war, with the effects falling primarily on civilians.”
Such practices, he adds, raise serious concerns under international humanitarian law, including U.N. Security Council Resolution 2573 on the protection of civilian infrastructure. In response, engineers are adapting.
Since the last war, parts of the network have begun shifting toward automated systems designed to reduce human exposure. Known as SCADA, these systems rely on sensors and remote monitoring to operate stations with minimal on-site presence.
At the El Brak pumping station in Sidon, set among banana fields, two workers oversee a system that supplies water to 52 villages. On a computer screen, water levels and distribution flows update in real time. “In case we have to leave, the system keeps running,” says Nihme Mrouieh (37). “We prioritize areas with more displaced people. We hope to do the same in other areas.”
Back at the pumping station in Tyre, still entirely manual, Mohamed keeps working alone. “There’s nothing here. Just life. Just water. Just water for life.” His green eyes flicker with emotion: “To threaten the very source of life is to threaten every one of us.”
Paloma de Dinechin is a Franco-Chilean investigative journalist based in Syria
