New water balance calculation for the Dead Sea

A press release from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research: The drinking water resources on the eastern, Jordanian side of the Dead Sea could decline severe as a result of climate change than those on the western, Israeli and Palestinian side. This is the conclusion reached by an international team of researchers that calculated the water flows around the Dead Sea. The natural replenishment rate of groundwater will reduce dramatically in the future if precipitation lowers as predicted, say the scientists, writing in the journal Science of the Total Environment. Even now, the available groundwater resources in the region are not sufficient to meet the growing water requirements of the population and agriculture. If the situation worsens, it could therefore have serious social, economic and ecological consequences for the region.

A reliable inventory of existing water resources around the Dead Sea, on the border between Israel, Palestine and Jordan, forms the basis for sustainable water management. The lowest lake on earth is not only one of the biggest tourist attractions in the Middle East; more than four million people rely on the groundwater resources in its catchment basin. For a long time, the complex hydrology of this region presented major unknown factors in the local water balance equation. To some extent it still does. Thanks to improved computer simulations, the researchers were able to
work out – on an international scale for the first time – how much water actually infiltrates from rainfall and replenishes the groundwater reservoir: around 281 million cubic metres per year. This means that we now also know what the maximum withdrawal limit should be if this resource is to be managed sustainably.

... Using the models, the scientists were able, for the first time, to make predictions about possible future changes in the groundwater resources that are so vital for this region: the western (Israeli–Palestinian) side of the lake receives almost twice as much rainfall as the eastern (Jordanian) side. As a result, groundwater replenishment rates are currently around 50 per cent higher on the western side. Climate scenarios predict a decrease in annual rainfall of around 20 per cent. However, the water that currently ends up underground and replenishes these important groundwater resources would be halved. The decrease on the western Israeli–Palestinian side is expected to be around 45 per cent, whereas the water available for the Jordanian (eastern) side would fall by nearly 55 per cent. The social and economic situation could therefore worsen, in Jordan in particular.

Saving and reusing water could therefore be a solution, and the UFZ researchers are developing this concept further with colleagues from Israel, Palestine and Jordan. For instance, the SMART project researched ways of stabilising water supply in the Middle East. The UFZ developed new concepts for decentralised wastewater treatment and made a significant contribution to the water master plan of Jordan, one of the world’s most arid countries. Great importance was attached to adapting the wastewater treatment concept to local conditions, and to collaborating with local scientists and authorities. A special implementation office was set up in Jordan’s Ministry of Water in Amman....

Sinkholes and surface springs in Samar (Western Dead Sea), the Jordan flank of the Dead Sea is visible in the background. Photo: Dr. Christian Siebert/UFZ

Water in Gaza - what the analysts are saying

IRIN:  A dry winter in the Middle East is being studied particularly closely in Gaza, where the area’s 1.9 million residents already face a number of largely man-made threats to water security. The following round-up of recent publications by think tanks, analysts and human rights organizations highlights the close link between water security and electricity supplies, and the near exhaustion of Gaza’s coastal aquifer.

A power crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) has reduced the availability of running water in most households, according to a factsheet produced by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), with more than 30 percent of homes in Gaza receiving running water for just 6-8 hours every four days.

In March, a petition signed by nearly 13,000 people and organised by the Emergency Water and Sanitation-Hygiene Group (EWASH), a coalition which includes national and international NGOs and UN agencies, was handed to the European Parliament to urge action to end the water crisis in Gaza.

“The scale and severity of the water crisis facing the Gaza Strip is enormous, and unless immediate action is taken, the damage to Gaza’s natural water resources will be irreversible,” says a factsheet produced by the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA).

At least 90 percent of the water supply in Gaza is contaminated with a combination of nitrate (NO3) or chloride (Cl), according to PWA, which says water quantity is also an issue, with average consumption of 90 litres per person per day, below recommended guidelines for minimum health requirements say EWASH....

NASA image of the Gaza Strip from space

Jordan pins water hopes on controversial pipeline project

IRIN: Jordan, one of the world’s most water scarce states, is facing a “perfect storm of pressures” including chronic scarcity, over-use, waste, and a massive increase in demand caused by refugee arrivals, according to a report published this month by the NGO Mercy Corps. To add to the water stress, the country is currently undergoing its driest rainy season in decades.

One proposed solution is due to be implemented by mid-2018 following Jordan’s signing of a controversial water sharing agreement with Israel and the Palestinian authorities in December 2013 after decades of discussions.

The agreement paves the way for the long-discussed Red Sea Dead Sea Water Conveyer (RSDSWC) project, though in a much reduced form. It includes the construction of a desalination plant at the Jordanian port of Aqaba, which will desalinate 800-1,000 million cubic metres (mcm) per year shared by participating countries, and the pumping of brine to revive the Dead Sea via a 180km pipeline/canal.

According to the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, Jordan will have chosen the contractor by April 2015, construction will begin at the end of 2015, and implementation will last almost 2.5 years. “With this, we will have solved Jordan’s problems at least for the next 30 years,” said Nabeel Zoubi, programme manager for the Red-Dead Sea programme at the ministry.

The plant is expected to produce at least 80 mcm every year, according to Zoubi. “Israel will buy approximately 50 mcm from Jordan at a cost of US$0.42 per cubic metre and the rest - approximately 30-40 mcm - will go to Jordan’s governorate of Aqaba,” Zoubi added....

Bab El Mandeb, South gate of the Red Sea, owner unknown, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Israelis outraged by EU official comparison of Israeli and Palestinian water allocation

Al-Jazeera,com: Comments made by the president of the European Parliament, in which he criticised Israeli settlements and implied that Israelis receive four times more water than Palestinians, has stoked anger in Israel.

The speech, made by German Martin Schulz on Wednesday, prompted the far-right Jewish Home party to storm out of the parliament and the spat made the front pages of Israel's main newspapers. Economy Minister Naftali Bennett warned against Germans criticising his country, in reference to the European country's Nazi past.

...A European Union source who declined to be named said it was hard to find a more pro-Israeli politician in Europe than Schulz, and that he was "shaken" by a controversy that had overshadowed what was meant to be a positive message.

..."How can it be that an Israeli is allowed to use 70 litres of water per day, but a Palestinian only 17?" Schulz asked. The municipal water consumption per capita per day in Israel in 2011 was 250 litres, while among Palestinians in the West Bank ... it was 70 litres.

...The spat prompted several NGOs to publish their own figures on water usage, with Friends of the Earth Middle East citing statistics from 2011 showing the ratio was close to four to one. "The municipal water consumption per capita per day in Israel in 2011 was 250 litres, while among Palestinians in the West Bank, after taking into consideration an average loss of approximately 30 percent of the water - due to theft and lack of infrastructure - it was 70 litres," the group said.

Israeli rights group B'Tselem also said there was "discrimination in water allocation", with Israelis receiving "much more water than Palestinian residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip"....

The Gaza Strip viewed from a NASA satellite

Despite rains, Dead Sea water levels falls again in December

Space Daily via UPI: Despite rainstorms that have soaked fields and filled reservoirs in Israel during December, the Dead Sea's water level still dropped, water researchers said.

Eli Raz, a researcher at the Dead Sea and Arava Science Center in Ketura said the Dead Sea fell to 427.82 meters (1,403 feet) below sea level in early January, 3 centimeters (slightly more than an inch) lower than the level measured the previous month, the Jerusalem Post reported Wednesday.

In comparison, Lake Kinneret saw an increase of 11 centimeters (slightly more than 4 inches) during the same period. The additional drop in the Dead Sea's water level brought the basin to 0.93 meters (3 feet) below its level one year ago, Hydrological Services data indicated.

The slow in the sea's water-level decrease last month was due in part to rainy conditions and lower temperatures that slowed the evaporation rate, Raz said....

Image of the Dead Sea by xta11, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license

Powerful storm and power shortages fill Gaza with waste water

IRIN: Hamdi Al Shami, 54, woke up in the highly populated Zeitoun area of Gaza City, on 11 December, to find raw sewage flowing down his street at a height of more than 2m. It was just one of several sewage overflows to occur in his neighbourhood over the last five weeks.

On 13 November, more than 35,000 cubic metres of raw sewage overflowed when the Zeitoun pumping station failed, affecting 3,000 nearby residents. Just as the mess was being cleaned up, the area was again inundated - this time with approximately twice as much waste - when heavy rains fell over the Gaza Strip between 11 and 15 December. In Gaza City, one of the worst-hit areas, the municipality estimated that hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of sewage and rainwater overflowed from pumping stations and manholes, flooding streets and homes.

“It was horrible. We lost many things when the sewage came from everywhere around us - the doors, manholes and sinks. This cannot be forgotten,” said Al Shami, speaking about November’s flooding.

That flooding was attributed to a combination of factors: power outages disrupting the city’s sewage pumps and a shortage in capacity, spare parts and facilities because of a seven-year blockade against Gaza. At the time, residents were told that a rapidly established power connection to the Israeli grid would prevent future problems. But with the recent rainfall, the situation in Al Shami’s neighbourhood has only worsened. He was stranded amid water and sewage for days....

Destruction in Gaza after Israeli bombardment, part of Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012, photo by Scott Bobb, Voice of America 

Besieged Gaza Strip battered by historic storm

International Solidarity Movement: Gaza’s bad weather has disrupted access lines and flooded whole areas. Thousands of families have been evacuated. Numerous injuries and two deaths have been reported. The Zionist siege and occupation contribute to aggravating the situation for tens of thousands of people.

The main route of access between the north and south of the Gaza Strip, called Saladin Street has been flooded, making travel very difficuly. A microbus running from Gaza to Rafah must be able to avoid deep pools of water by going from one lane to another, slowly and laboriously climbing over the hedge that separates them. Some cars are blocked because the water is high enough to disable their engines. Carts are pulled by donkeys, who walk with their feet in the water.

...In the Jabalia refugee camp, which lies at a low point in the north of Gaza, a young man on the street reported that one man had died from the fatal mixture of broken electricity wires and water in the streets. Boys said that last year, three people and one horse were killed the same way: an electrical wire broke and fell into knee-high sewage water, which the wastewater plant and pumps couldn’t move out of city.

Yusuf Khela, manager of the Jabalia municipality, says that two projects have been underway. One project would pump water directly to the to the wastewater plant further north without passing the sewage treatment plant in Jabalia. To manage this, it would be necessary to pump 3000qm3/h, but because of the fuel shortage, it is often difficult to manage these. The municipality installed two pumps in case one runs out of fuel, to guarantee at least some pumping of water.

Even if there is fuel, it will be expensive, costing 7 NIS per liter. To afford these, the government is even cutting employees’ salaries in order to fuel the pumps. If they stop working, the rain, salt and sewage water mixing together, particularly during the heaviest rain in decades, would first flood all of Jabalia camp....

A NASA view of the border between Israel and Egypt, with the Gaza Strip on the right

'Climate change puts 5 million Israelis at risk of severe flooding events'

Sharon Udasin in the Jerusalem Post: Rising temperatures and climbing sea levels due to climate change could be putting more than five million Israelis at severe risk, a special Environmental Protection Ministry report has indicated. 

The rise of the Mediterranean Sea's levels as well as flooding of rivers alone could gravely impact five million Israelis as water barrels into their communities, the study warned. In addition to the flooding dangers, the conditions could also result in outbreaks of transmissible diseases from pests such as mosquitoes, the report explained. Escalating temperatures combined with population growth will also undoubtedly lead to an increased demand for water from decreasing aquifer supplies. 

The report was assembled at the request of the Environmental Protection Ministry by the Knowledge Center for Climate Change, with researchers from the University of Haifa, Tel Aviv University, the Technion and the Shmuel Neaman Institute for National Policy Research.

"Climate changes have for some time already been no longer just a theoretical threat beyond the horizon – it is much closer and much more real," said Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz. "They are also not inevitable or predestined, but processes that are influenced by the actions and deeds of human beings, and therefore, we must address this issue seriously and comprehensively in order to contribute our part toward coping with this."

Within the report are maps that define in detail areas of cities and exact streets where flooding will likely occur due to the rising sea and river levels. In Tel Aviv, the flooding could reach up to the Ibn Gabriol Street thoroughfare in the city's center, while similar problematic events could affect Akko, Haifa, Bat Yam and several other coastal municipalities, the report warned.  About 2.5 million people are located in these seaside risk prone areas, while another 2.8 million also may be highly in danger due to their proximity to rivers, the study explained....

A flood in Israel, either 2011 or 2012, shot by Lehava Rahat via the PikiWiki - Israel free image collection project, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license

Dead Sea, Red Sea plan raises environmental hackles

Terra Daily via AFP: A plan to link the Red Sea with the shrinking Dead Sea could save it from total evaporation and bring desalinated water to thirsty neighbours Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians. But environmentalists warn that the "Red-Dead" project could have dire consequences, altering the unique chemistry of the landmark inland lake at the lowest point on earth.

Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur said on Monday that his government had decided to press ahead with the 980-million dollar project which would give the parched Hashemite kingdom 100 million cubic metres (3.5 billion cubic feet) of water a year.

"The government has approved the project after years of technical, political, economic and geological studies," Nsur told a news conference. Under the plan, Jordan will draw water from the Gulf of Aqaba at the northern end of the Red Sea to the nearby Risheh Height, where a desalination plant is to be built to treat water.

"The desalinated water will go south to (the Jordanian town of) Aqaba, while salt water will be pumped to the Dead Sea," Nsur said. The Dead Sea, the world's saltiest body of water, is on course to dry out by 2050.

It started shrinking in the 1960s when Israel, Jordan and Syria began to divert water from the Jordan River, the Dead Sea's main tributary....

On Israel's shore of the Dead Sea, xta11, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license

Tel Aviv will flood again

Green Prophet: It’s warming up again this week in Israel, just after a series of storms last week that began with major flooding on the Mediterranean Coast and ended with Jerusalem of Gold turned to white after a serious snowstorm. Reports on the flooding of the Yarkon River, which shut down large sections of Tel Aviv for a day, including its major highway, have addressed the insufficient drainage system, but little has been made of the connection between climate change and severe weather events.

Professors Pinhas Alpert and Colin Price, lecturers at the Porter School of Environmental Studies’ International MA Program at Tel Aviv University, have predicted that increased flooding will result from global climate change. Alpert helped to pioneer the use of cellular phone networks for monitoring the amount and intensity of precipitation and water vapor – measurements which are virtually free of charge and can be used for studying global climate systems.

Prof. Colin Price, Head of the Department of Geophysical, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, researches the Earth’s changing climate and what impact it will have on global thunderstorms. He predicts that a relatively small change in global temperatures – a one degree rise – will result in a significant increase in lighting activity. He expects that in drier climates like Israel the storms may become fewer in number, but more intense with stronger and more rainfall and lightning.

This is precisely what happened last week in Israel, when the largest storm since 2003 hit the country and provided as much rain as certain cities see in an entire winter, according to the Israel Meteorological Service.

“Intense rainstorms in Israel can cause flash flooding, which causes increased runoff that doesn’t reach the aquifers,” says Price. “The water scarcity problem in this region is exacerbated when rainfall doesn’t recharge the groundwater supply and precious drinking water flows out to sea.”...

The harbor in Tel Aviv, shot by Daniel winter, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Israel heaviest user of pesticides

Seed Daily via UPI: Israel uses more pesticides in its farm fields than any other Western country, a survey of agricultural practices by its Central Bureau of Statistics found.

The survey found Israel spread more pesticides between 2008 and 2010 than any other country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which includes 34 countries, The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.

Israeli farmers on average use 3.5 tons of pesticides per 100 hectares (240 acres), while the next-highest number belongs to Japan at 1.55 tons per 100 hectares. The lowest user of pesticides in the OECD, Sweden, uses 88 pounds per 240 acres....

A chickpea field in Israel, in the Lower Galilee, Israel. In the background mount Tabor and the Franciscan church. Shot by Eitan f, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

'Israel could be flooded with refugees due to droughts'

Billie Frenkel in Ynet: Israel must prepare for a situation in which it will become a passage to Europe for refugees escaping drought and rising ocean levels in Egypt, Jordan, and North Africa, a report prepared by the Climate Change Information Center and presented this week to Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan warns.

The report was compiled in response to the center's grim environmental forecast published in January of this year, which predicted that climate change would cause rising temperatures, decreased rainfall, desertification of southern Israel, increased heat waves, and flooding.

The report recommends a number of courses of action regarding water, health, biodiversity, climate, green construction, geostrategy, and economics. The experts see the problems presented by climate change as an opportunity to "turn climate change concerns and threats into a springboard to move ahead with projects that Israel should push anyway" – such as increasing the water supply and securing the country's supply of food and energy....

The Western Wall in Jerusalem, shot by Wayne McLean (jgritz), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Jordan Valley team hopes to abate climate change

Sharon Udasin in the Jerusalem Post: Adhering to the “resources know no borders” concept, experts involved in a multinational, decade-long Jordan Valley hydrological project hope that their research will not only help preserve the area’s ecosystem but also promote future regional cooperation through science.

“Any management that we’re doing in one country will affect the other,” said Prof. Katja Tielbörger, scientific director of the Global Change in Hydrological Cycle: Jordan River (GLOWA JR) project. “It’s nice to develop strategies of climate adaptation, but eventually they might end up really inefficient because they’re not coordinated with the neighbor.”

Tielbörger spoke on Sunday at “Science and the response to climate change in Israel,” the first in a two-day conference sponsored by the GLOWA JR project, Tel Aviv University’s Porter School of Environmental Studies and the Israel Palestine Center for Research and Information.

The conference signaled the coming end of the 11- year interdisciplinary and international research venture, which has aimed to provide scientific support for sustainable water management in the Jordan River area...

At the conference, experts and stakeholders involved with the program were to discuss the results from the past decade of water management analysis as well as the aftermath of the project....

A sign in the region shot by David Bjorgen, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

In Israel, 'higher temperatures, extreme weather coming'

Sharon Udasin in the Jerusalem Post: An Environmental Protection Ministry climate change report predicts that over the next decade, the country will see an annual decrease in rainfall, and increases in temperature, southern desertification, heat waves, periods of torrential rains and flooding.

“Global climate change is already here – that’s a fact,” Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan said in a statement released by his office. “We are all experiencing the manifestation of diminishing precipitation, heat waves, floods and more.”

The Environmental Protection Ministry has issued its report as part of the ministry’s efforts to advance a national action plan toward adapting to climate – a plan that will be governed by a committee under the leadership of the ministry’s director-general.


...The report is divided into seven categories that the researchers expected would have great impact on the country in the near future – climate, public health, water management, green building, biodiversity, economics and geo-strategy.

Among the major conclusions of the report are an expected temperature rise of between 0.3 to 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade, as well as decreased precipitation levels of between 1.1 and 3.7 percent in that same period.

In addition to rampant desertification of the country’s southern lands, Israel will also likely experience periods of extreme weather – from intense heat waves to torrential rains and floods, according to the report....

Hurvat Uzza, overlooking Kina River at Arad Valley, Israel. Shot by Lior Golgher, Wikimedia Commons via PikiWiki, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license

Palestinians fear for ancient West Bank water source

Tom Perry in Reuters: Hewn from rock, the cavernous cisterns which dot the desert beyond Bethlehem have for centuries harvested winter rain to provide shepherds and their flocks with water through summer.

Under a baking sun, an elderly Bedouin explains how cisterns he remembers from childhood, many of them restored to full working order in the last few years, are once again helping his goat-herding community to survive. That, he concludes, is why the Israeli authorities who control the West Bank have demolished at least three in the area since November. "Maybe they are doing this to make us leave. We will not leave," said Falah Hedawa, 64, sitting on cushions in his tent home pitched in the hills that slope down to the Dead Sea.

Out into the desert, a stagnant pool marked the spot where one of the cisterns, chiseled out of a hillside, had stood until its recent demolition. A mud trail on the otherwise dry ground indicated where the water inside had drained away toward a wadi, a valley which becomes a river when the rain falls.

Israel has demolished 20 rainwater collection cisterns in the West Bank in the first half of this year, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which monitors conditions in the Palestinian territories. Their razing is part of a marked acceleration in demolitions of Palestinian structures in "Area C" -- the 60 percent of the West Bank where Israel exercises total control....

Drawing wheat from cistern, Isdud, Palestine, around 1908, March 12

Israeli fire typical of climate change

Joshua S. Hill in Planetsave: Recent fires to sweep through the Carmel Mountains near Haifa in Israel are a typical example of the effects of climate change and a bitter taste of the future according to Dr. Guy Pe’er.

Pe’er and other members of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev on behalf of the Israeli Ministry of the Environmental Protection have prepared Israel’s first report to the United Nations on climate change. Entitled “Israel’s National Report on Climate Change”, the report notes that the frequency, intensity, and the extent of fires will increase due to the extension of droughts, the increase in water evaporation, and an increase in the number of intense heat waves….

Mount Carmel forest fire in Israel, 2010, shot by Hanay, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

The sea's ups and downs in the eastern Mediterranean

University of Haifa: The sea level in Israel has been rising and falling over the past 2,500 years, with a one-meter difference between the highest and lowest levels, most of the time below the present-day level. This has been shown in a new study supervised by Dr. Dorit Sivan, Head of the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa. “Rises and falls in sea level over relatively short periods do not testify to a long-term trend. It is early yet to conclude from the short-term increases in sea level that this is a set course that will not take a change in direction,” explains Dr. Sivan.

The rising sea level is one of the phenomena that have most influence on humankind: the rising sea not only floods the littoral regions but also causes underground water salinisation, flooded effluents, accelerated coastal destruction, and other damage.

According to Dr. Sivan, the changing sea level can be attributed to three main causes: the global cause - the volume of water in the ocean, which mirrors the mass of ice sheets and is related to global warming or cooling; the regional cause - vertical movement of the earth’s surface, which is usually related to the pressure placed on the surface by the ice; and the local cause - vertical tectonic activity. Seeing as Israel is not close to former ice caps and the tectonic activity along the Mediterranean coast is negligible over these periods, it can be concluded that drastic changes in Israel’s sea levels are mainly related to changes in the volume of water.

…“Over the past century, we have witnessed the sea level in Israel fluctuating with almost 19 centimeters between the highest and lowest levels. Over the past 50 years Israel’s mean sea level rise is 5.5 centimeters, but there have also been periods when it rose by 10 centimeters over 10 years. That said, even acute ups and downs over short periods do not testify to long-term trends. An observation of the sea levels over hundreds and thousands of years shows that what seems a phenomenon today is as a matter of fact “nothing new under the sun”, Dr. Sivan concludes.

A Templar tunnel in Acre, near one of the sites where this study was conducted, shot by Sambach, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

Climate catastrophe and Israel's denial of Palestinian access to water

Javier Sethness in Dissident Voice: Amnesty International has recently released two reports on Israeli water policy that present a rather thoroughgoing indictment of the Zionist colonization project broadly conceived. Entitled “Thirsting for Justice: Palestinian Access to Water Restricted” and “Troubled Waters: Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water,” the reports join many other studies of both more and less recent memory that have provided similar perspectives critical of Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinian people. In the reports, Amnesty finds the Israeli state to be fundamentally violating the right to water of the 4 million Palestinians living under its ongoing military occupation, and hence also to be massively violating Palestinians’ right to an adequate standard of living. It seems important to consider that this aspect of Israel’s active deprivation of the Palestinian people in many ways mirrors and previews the acute deprivation of much of the world’s population that capitalist societies are enacting through their contributions to dangerous anthropogenic interference with the Earth’s climate

For those familiar with the present situation in Palestine, Amnesty’s reports may not prove to be terribly surprising; they are, however, no less offensive and shocking for all that. Amnesty finds that Israelis consume over 80 percent of the water available in the so-called Mountain Aquifer that lies beneath the West Bank, leaving the remaining 20 percent for the 2.3 million West Bank-residing Palestinians.

...The water situation in Palestine, then, is monstrous, just as is much else related to the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine. Indeed, Israeli water policy is reminiscent of what Salih Booker and William Minter refer to in a different context as global apartheid,1 and in this sense parallels many similar horrors of the contemporary world. One of the most pressing such parallels that bears mention here is that of climate change.

… It is in the destruction by Israel of Palestinian cisterns and water-treatment plants as in its rendering of entire Palestinian communities into environmental refugees through the wholesale cutting-off of their access to water that can be seen a few of the likely realities of the totality toward which the world is moving as a result of climate change….

The Gaza Strip in May 2005, NASA

Study: Climate change threatens Mideast stability

Ynet, via Reuters: Climate change could spark "environmental wars" in the Middle East over already scarce water supplies and dissuade Israel from any pullout from occupied Arab land, an international report said last week. Rights group says West Bank facing severe water crisis, claims settlers receive 3.5 times as much supply as Palestinians, accuses Israel of refusing to allow drilling of new wells. This year over 40 cubic meters will be missing

Almost 10 years of failed peace talks between Syria and Israel have focused on water in and around the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The vital resource is also a point of conflict between Israel and Palestinians seeking a state.

…"The expectation of coming environmental wars might imply that the way to deal with shrinking resources is to increase military control over them," said the Danish-funded study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, an independent organization headquartered in Canada. The Golan supplies 30% of the water for the Kinneret, Israel's main water reservoir.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the report said sea-level rises as a result of climate change threatened to contaminate Gaza's sole aquifer supplying 1.5 million Palestinians in the territory. The coastal aquifer, which is shared by Israel, is the only source of fresh drinking water for Gaza, controlled by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. The report said its water quality was abysmal.…Climate change will diminish water resources across the Middle East, the report said….

A hospital in Quinetra, the Golan Heights, shot by Soman (I think), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5, Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 and Attribution ShareAlike 1.0 License.

UN will send post-conflict environmental team to Gaza

Environment News Service: The United Nations is preparing to send a post-conflict assessment team into the Gaza Strip in early May to determine the impact of the recent conflict with Israel on the region's environment and infrastructure. Early UN assessments show that damage to infrastructure has led to increased discharge of raw sewage into groundwater supplies and the Mediterranean Sea, posing a problem for authorities and the public in Gaza and potentially also in Israel.

…The team will include up to eight UNEP and international independent experts in areas of water and waste water management, asbestos and hazardous wastes monitoring, coastal and marine environmental assessment and institutional and economic evaluation.

Their work follows the early recovery needs assessment led by the UN Development Programme. A few days after the cease-fire in January 2009, a UNEP expert was deployed to the Gaza Strip to make an initial assessment of the environmental impacts as part of the UNDP-led Early Recovery and Reconstruction Assessment.…These early assessments identified areas in need of more extensive, investigation following the conflict in December 2008 and January 2009 including:

• Solid Waste Management: The recent conflict created large quantities of building demolition waste, which is often contaminated with hazardous materials such as asbestos. Even before the most recent conflict, Gaza did not have an appropriate system for waste segregation and disposal. Now, the creation of such a large quantity of solid waste has overloaded the already inadequate infrastructure.

• Waste Water Management: The Gaza Strip lacked an adequate sewerage system prior to the most recent conflict and damage of the existing sewerage infrastructure further aggravated an already serious public health situation. Detailed analysis of the impact on ground water will be required.

• Management of Contaminated Land: Small-scale industries, such as factories, cement works and garages were struck during the conflict. This has created numerous potentially contaminated sites within the urban environment....

January 2009, a destroyed mosque in the Gaza Strip, photo by ISM Palestine, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License