Can you imagine not having enough water or electricity?

Rates of chloride and nitrates have reached alarming levels: 

Palestinian child transporting his family's bottles, filled with potable water from a purification station, in Deir al-Balah central Gaza Strip, on May 22, 2013. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/APA Images) - 

“The frequent power outages have also made it extremely difficult for the municipalities to provide citizens’ homes with water around the clock. Local municipalities pump water for less than four hours a day, a very limited period for Gaza’s residents."

Over ninety percent of Gaza’s water wells are unsafe for human consumption  [Mondoweiss]

The “making the desert bloom” myth and more

The 'making the desert bloom' myth has long masked Israel's occupation and degradation of Palestinian natural resources

A strong rebuttal to a recent Scientific American article on Israel’s desalination industry

“although Israel propagated a perception of ingenious Jewish agricultural practices (through PR narratives of Jewish exceptionalism like that employed in the Scientific American article), Israel’s foreign agriculture was actually destructive to Palestine’s ecological balance. With 80 percent of available water going to agriculture, which contributed less than 3 percent of Israel’s economy, Israel continued to sap water resources to further the Zionist colonial scheme, an ecological contradiction to the local environment.”  

Israel's desalination miracle, Santa Claus and other fairy tales [via Middle East Eye]

Hydro-Apartheid sums it up

Palestinians are forced to live with water shortages—and cut-offs

"Whether in the occupied Gaza Strip or the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the supply of water flowing into Palestinian homes is strictly capped or obstructed by Israel."

Israel’s hydro-apartheid keeps West Bank thirsty [via The Electronic Intifada]

Nowhere is freshwater scarcer than in the Arab world

Water scarcity contributes to violence.

 “Water can even be wielded as a weapon. In Syria, the Islamic State has seized control of the upstream basins of the two main rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. The fact that nearly half of all Arabs depend on freshwater inflows from non-Arab countries, including Turkey and the upstream states on the Nile River, may serve to exacerbate water insecurity further.”

Arab World’s biggest Problem not Terrorism or Fundamentalism but Water! [via Informed Comment]