Installing the expanded seawater desalination plant in Deir Al Balah

An aerial view of the installation works at the Southern Gaza Desalination Plant in Deir Al Balah, where MACC is building a 14,000 m³/day expansion with a 250 kW solar PV system for UNICEF and the European Union.

This aerial view shows the installation works at the seawater desalination plant in Deir Al Balah: the new steel-structure process building of about 1,500 m², the rooftop and ground-mounted solar arrays of the 250 kW PV system, and the site works around the plant.

MACC is designing and building the second-phase expansion of the Southern Gaza Desalination Plant for UNICEF with European Union funding. The 14,000 m³/day reverse-osmosis process plant takes the facility to 20,000 m³/day, serving about 250,000 people in the Khan Younis and Rafah governorates with water that is blended into the municipal networks.

The expansion matters because the Gaza Strip has very little drinkable groundwater left; by 2022 the share of potable water in the Strip had fallen to about 3%, and desalination is the main way to supply residential areas.