Bi-Weekly Brief: March 22, 2024 (World Water Day)
Bi-Weekly Brief: March 22, 2024 (World Water Day)
Israel deploys water as a weapon of ethnic cleansing, genocide and war
The theme of this year’s World Water Day - “Water for Peace” – collides with reality in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where Israel with US backing defies international law and has turned water into an aggressive weapon of war.
The West Bank
In the five months since the Gaza War began, Israeli settlers have staged 650 attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank resulting in casualties and damage to property, including to water resources. Settlers and soldiers have contaminated Palestinian wells, demolished irrigation reservoirs, and destroyed water tanks and pipelines.
As Alliance ‘Water Facts’ attest, targeting Palestinian water sources is an old Israeli practice. In 2021-2023 alone, settlers and the army seized or destroyed an estimated 160 Palestinian reservoirs, sewage networks and irrigation ponds, damaged water pipes, poured concrete into wells and pumped wastewater from settlements onto Palestinian agricultural lands. “Over the first half of 2023, authorities knocked down almost the same number of Palestinian water installations as they did all of last year,” according to the August 19, 2023 Associated Press.
In Haaretz (March 17) Erella Dunayevsky, a long-time Israeli peace activist with 20-year-long ties to farmers in the South Hebron Hills, said that the intensity and absolute impunity with which settlers are carrying out their attacks is something new. Settlers “pour motor oil into wells, cut the cord of the generator, vandalize water tanks. What is being done under cover of the war is unlike anything before. The settlers are running the South Hebron Hills, the army and the police. They don’t answer to anybody, and they’re abusing the local people. They do whatever they please, because for them this is ancestral land and they want to drive off the people who live there. This desire is backed by the government.”
According to the West Bank Protection Consortium, in addition to “a surge in violence from settlers against water and sanitation systems,” water access is increasingly imperiled by Israeli checkpoints and road closures that prevent Palestinians reaching their water sources.
On February 1, the Biden Administration placed sanctions on four Israeli settlers and expanded the sanctions on March 14 to include three additional settlers and two settler outposts. But it has not taken action against National Security Minister Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Smotrich, two settler cabinet ministers who are vigorous proponents of emptying the West Bank’s Area C of Palestinians and have been masterminding Israel’s latest phase of settlement expansion. In Smotrich’s words, the US sanctions represent “a surrender to the BDS movement, which is meant to denigrate the State of Israel and end the settlement enterprise and create a Palestinian terror state."
The Gaza Strip
If preventing access to water is being used to enable Israel to grab more West Bank land, the denial of water in Gaza is being wielded to advance Israel’s genocidal war aims. On October 7, 2023 Israel shut off the pipes supplying the Gaza Strip with water and two days later, Defense Minister Gallant announced that Israel was a “imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.”
Within days, the amount of water reaching Gaza’s residents had dropped by 95 percent, as airstrikes damaged six water wells, three water pumping stations, one water reservoir and a desalination plant serving half of Gaza’s population. By October 19, Gaza’s residents had to rely for drinking, cooking and hygiene on only three liters per day or less, with those crowded into UN shelters receiving only one liter per day. The World Health Organization puts the minimum amount of clean water needed in emergency situations at between 7.5 and 20 liters per day. Soon there were reports of people being forced to drink seawater and water extracted from polluted agricultural wells, and water-borne disease rapidly spread.
In March 2024, OCHA reported that only one of the three water pipelines bringing water from Israel was partly operational, that 83% of Gaza’s groundwater wells and all of the water treatment plants were non functional, that only two of the three main desalination plants were partly working and that no clean water was reaching the north. The extent of the damage to Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure and the impact on health are detailed in this PAX report. Drinking polluted, heavily salinated water has dangerously weakened resistance to disease, as dehydration and deliberately-engineered famine begin to take the lives of children. In the words of the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, “Before the war, Gaza was the greatest open air prison. Today it is the greatest open air graveyard.”
Gaza is not just being deprived of water. Water is also being harnessed as an offensive weapon in a manner that could forever destroy this vital, already endangered, natural resource.
At the end of January, Israel confirmed that it was pumping seawater into tunnels in the Gaza Strip in an effort to destroy them and drive out Hamas fighters. When it prepared to conduct a trial of the procedure in northern Gaza in mid December, environmentalists voiced concerns that the flooding of tunnels could eradicate what remains of sweet-water in the fragile Coastal Aquifer, Gaza’s sole freshwater source, which was already 97% contaminated. One Israeli water expert expressed worry that “the negative impact on groundwater quality would last for several generations, depending on the amount that infiltrates into the subsurface,” and said that he would “hesitate about destroying a massive natural resource.” .
Mark Zeitoun, author of Power and Water in the Middle East: the Hidden Politics of the Palestinian-Israeli Water Conflict, declared that Israel’s action “will turn a vulnerable resource into a catastrophic one….Flooding the freshwater aquifer with seawater would go against every norm humanity has ever developed, including the environment aspects of international humanitarian law/rules of war and the recent principles on the protection of environment in relation to armed conflict and all the progress made towards criminalising harm to the natural environment: ecocide.”
Israel’s war on Gaza threatens to make its entire environment unlivable for many years to come.
Banner design by Paul Normandia of Red Sun Press
Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel | Flash Update #144. March 21
Gaza Strip Updates
Intense Israeli bombardment and ground operations as well as heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups continue to be reported across much of the Gaza Strip, particularly in Al Rimal area in the vicinity of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza city. This has resulted in further civilian casualties, displacement, and destruction of houses and other civilian infrastructure.
Between the afternoon of 20 March and 10:30 on 21 March, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, 65 Palestinians were killed, and 92 Palestinians were injured. Between 7 October 2023 and 10:30 on 21 March 2024, at least 31,988 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and 74,188 Palestinians have been injured, according to MoH in Gaza.
The following are among the deadly incidents reported on 19 and 20 March:
On 19 March, at about 21:00, at least 27 Palestinians were reportedly killed when a three-floor building housing internally displaced persons (IDPs) on Al Ishreen street in An Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in Deir al Balah, was hit.
On 19 March, at about 17:30, at least four Palestinians, including the head police of An Nuseirat, and two young girls, were reportedly killed and others injured when a car in An Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in Deir al Balah, was hit.
On 19 March, at about 20:45, near Al Kuwaiti roundabout at the southeastern entrance to Gaza city, at least 30 Palestinians, were shot at and killed. Among the victims was the Director of the Emergency Committee in western Gaza city. The group reportedly comprised Palestinians who were part of a committee tasked with overseeing the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid.
On 20 March, at about 4:00, 20 Palestinians were reportedly killed, and others injured, when a residential building in Ard Ash Shanti area, in northwestern Gaza city, was hit.
On 20 March, at 5:25, at least seven Palestinians were reportedly killed, and others injured, when a house in Al Bureij Refugee Camp, in Deir al Balah, was hit.
On 20 March, at about 11:00, four Palestinians, including two children and a woman, were reportedly killed when a house near Hamdan Hall in eastern Rafah was hit.
Between the afternoons of 20 and 21 March, no Israeli soldiers were reported killed in Gaza. As of 21 March, 250 soldiers have been killed and 1,489 soldiers injured in Gaza since the beginning of the ground operation, according to the Israeli military. In addition, over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed in Israel, the vast majority on 7 October. As of 21 March, the Israeli authorities estimate that 134 Israelis and foreign nationals remain captive in Gaza, including fatalities whose bodies are withheld.
The Israeli military operation inside and around Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza city has continued for the fourth consecutive day. According to the Israeli military, it has killed over 50 armed Palestinians in the past 24 hours, bringing to 140 the number of Palestinians the Israeli army said they have killed since the start of this military operation. According to the spokesperson of the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza, the Israeli army reportedly refused to allow civil defense crews to reach and rescue hundreds of injured people who had issued calls for help in the vicinity of Al Shifa Hospital. The Israeli military also reported that about 3,700 people passed through a checkpoint it established near Al Shifa hospital and moved southwards, over 300 of whom have been detained.
In a recent report, Oxfam International outlines seven key humanitarian access constraints that impede aid delivery into and across Gaza. Among other constraints, the report draws attention to the denial of entry of civilian goods into Gaza by the Israeli authorities, on the grounds that they could potentially be used for military purposes. It highlights that the range of prohibited items goes beyond international best practice for regulating trade in dual-use items established by the Wassenaar Arrangement. The report adds: “Israel is arbitrarily rejecting aid items as ‘dual-use’; civilian goods with a potential military use. Such items, including flashlights, batteries, water pipes, fittings and medical supplies, are often necessary for people’s survival and for meeting other basic needs,” with the same item sometimes being rejected or allowed to pass on different days. According to the report, the prohibition on the entry of back-up generators has severely impacted the functionality of Gaza’s water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and health sectors, and Oxfam has been unable to bring in a shipment of vital water quality testing equipment since December 2023. Action Aid had also reported that oxygen cylinders and anaesthetics for hospitals were among the items not permitted to enter Gaza during inspections. Other items that humanitarian partners are currently identifying as difficult to bring into Gaza include psycho-social support kits, mine-action supplies for Explosive Ordnance contamination assessments, and telecommunications equipment.
On 20 March, following a petition filed by Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHRI), the Israeli Supreme Court issued a temporary injunction against the return to Gaza of some 25 patients, along with their companions, who have been at hospitals in East Jerusalem and Israel since before 7 October. The patients were scheduled to be bused back to Gaza by the Israeli authorities, reportedly because they no longer require in-patient medical treatment, and include cancer patients and five newborn babies and their mothers. According to PHRI’s spokesperson, as cited in the media: “Returning residents to Gaza during a military conflict and a humanitarian crisis is against international law and poses a deliberate risk to innocent lives.” In late October 2023, WHO estimated that at least 400 patients from Gaza had been stranded in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, after the movement between Gaza and the West Bank came to a halt. Separately, on 18 March, PHRI and five other human rights organizations petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to “compel Israel to allow the entry of all humanitarian aid and assistance shipments into Gaza and ensure the civilian population receives everything it needs to survive the war – in accordance with Israel’s obligations as an occupying power.”
Read the full report: Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel Flash Update #14
Humanitarian workers preparing hot Ramadan Iftar meals for displaced families in southern Gaza. Implemented by ANERA and World Central Kitchen, this is one of 122 relief projects currently supported by the occupied Palestinian territory Humanitarian Fund. Photo by ANERA
Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel Flash Update #141
1.1 million people in Gaza are projected to face catastrophic levels of food insecurity between March and July 2024, up from 378,000 in December 2023, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification analysis released on 18 March.
Nutrition screenings conducted in February show acute malnutrition rates among children in northern Gaza and Rafah have nearly doubled since January.
On 18 March, the Israeli military launched an operation in the area Al Shifa Hospital, in Gaza city, and reportedly distributed leaflets instructing internally displaced persons to immediately evacuate to Al Mawasi area in southern Gaza.
Read the full report: Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel Flash Update #141
“People in Gaza are starving to death right now,” warns the World Food Programme Executive Director Cindy McCain, as every second person is expected to experience catastrophic levels of food insecurity. Photo by UNICEF/El Baba
