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<h1 class="reader-title">How Can Gaza’s Contaminated Water
Catastrophe Be Solved?</h1>
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<p><em>by Sandy Tolan - November 23, 2018<br>
</em></p>
<p>Since the 2014 war, Mousa Hillah, known to neighbours
and family as Abu Ali, has had far bigger worries, which
are etched deeply into the exhausted face of the
48-year-old grandfather.</p>
<p>Dodging shell fire from Israeli tanks, he fled with his
family from <a href="http://imemc.org/article/69011/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">the destruction of his
Shuja’eyya neighbourhood</a>, flattened by Israel
in an attack so devastating – 7,000 shells in barely an
hour – that it astonished even US military officials.
(“Holy bejeezus!” one retired general exclaimed.)</p>
<p>The family took refuge for months in an in-law’s house
near the sea, along with 50 other people. When they
returned, Abu Ali found his home – the one he had built
after 30 years of working construction in Israel –
utterly destroyed.</p>
<p>Brick by board, he rebuilt it, adorning his front
entrance, in a dose of biting irony, with repurposed
tank shells.</p>
<div>
<h5>Facts</h5>
<p>UN: more than 95% of Gaza water is undrinkable.</p>
<p>Israeli occupation prevents entry of digging
equipment to Gaza so that Gazans cannot dig deep to
get clean water.</p>
<p>Salinity has been sharply increasing since the start
of Israeli punitive measures on Gaza.</p>
</div>
<p>And now, as he sits in the filtered morning light
beneath a lattice of grape leaves, he worries less about
potable water than the Israeli drone buzzing overhead –
often the harbinger of another attack.</p>
<p>God forbid if the military on either side, Israel or
Egypt, starts shooting people approaching the fence,
desperate for clean water.</p>
<p>Gidon Bromberg, director of Ecopeace Middle East in Tel
Aviv, said: “I want to sleep well,” Abu Ali says, as his
family takes refuge inside the rebuilt house. “I don’t
feel safe in my home.”</p>
<p>So the brackish, undrinkable water that sputters from
his tap, or the sweet water with possible faecal
contamination in his rooftop tank: these are issues Abu
Ali files under the category of extreme nuisance.</p>
<p>This very morning, for example, the electricity
came on only from 6:30 to 8:30.</p>
<p>It shut off before the water delivery truck arrived –
“too late to pump the water to the roof,” Abu Ali
complains.</p>
<p>A shortage of drinking water is a major concern, but
clearly, worrying about the buzzing drone takes
priority.</p>
<p><strong>Gaza’s water catastrophe</strong></p>
<p>Yet if the Gaza Strip truly becomes “uninhabitable” by
2020, as the UN and humanitarian groups warn, it will be
largely because of the utter collapse of the system for
delivering safe drinking water and properly disposing of
disease-causing sewage.</p>
<p>Because of Gaza’s water and sewage catastrophe, medical
experts are now seeing sharp increases in waterborne and
foodborne diseases, including gastroenteritis, severe
diarrhoea, salmonella, typhoid fever, an “<a
href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29268788"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">alarming magnitude</a>”
of stunting in young children, and even something called
“blue baby syndrome.”</p>
<p>Independent, peer-reviewed medical studies also
document an alarming rise in <a
href="https://mafiadoc.com/abstract-book-of-accepted-abstracts-lpha-2017-_59e429641723ddad37221ec1.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">anaemia</a> and <a
href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0135092"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">infant mortality</a>. And
doctors in Gaza’s hospitals now report increased cases
of paediatric cancer.</p>
<p>For years these torments seemed sealed off from the
outside world by layers of fences, locked gates,
patrolling Israeli drones and warplanes,
and international disdain and indifference.</p>
<p>Now, finally, from Washington to European capitals, and
even to the Israeli security infrastructure in Tel
Aviv, alarm bells are going off, warning that something
must be done to prevent the water catastrophe in Gaza
from spinning out of control.</p>
<p>“If you really want to change the lives of people, you
have to solve the water issue first,” says Adnan Abu
Hasna, Gaza spokesperson for the UN Palestinian refugee
agency, UNRWA.</p>
<p><strong>How did the water crisis begin?</strong></p>
<p>The crisis essentially began with the creation of
Israel in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians were driven from their towns and villages
and the population of Gaza quadrupled in a matter of
weeks.</p>
<p>Now, three-quarters of Gaza’s two million people
are refugees. Their descendants put immense pressure on
Gaza’s aquifer, drawing it down so far that seawater is
flowing in.</p>
<p>What is increasing the pressure on the aquifer are the
billions of gallons pumped by Gaza’s now debilitated
citrus industry, and the billions more by
Gaza’s Israeli settlers, who helped drain a sweet pocket
of Gaza water before Israel removed them in 2005.</p>
<p>Now, barely <a
href="https://phys.org/news/2017-03-war-scarred-gaza-pollution-health-woes.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">three percent </a>of
Gaza’s drinking water wells are fit for human
consumption.</p>
<p>The aquifer is badly contaminated
with disease-causing nitrates from pesticide use, and
from sewage which flows freely as Gaza’s sewage plant is
shut down for lack of electricity.</p>
<p>And the desalinated drinking water used by two-thirds
of Gazans, according to tests by the Palestinian Water
Authority, is prone to faecal contamination, causing
more disease and making it a severe risk for Gaza’s
children.</p>
<p><a
href="https://theecologist.org/2014/jul/16/gaza-israel-bombs-water-and-sewage-systems"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">Israel’s bombing</a> of <a
href="https://theconversation.com/water-in-the-firing-line-as-israel-targets-gazas-infrastructure-29867"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">water delivery
infrastructure</a> – including wells, water towers and
pipelines, and <a
href="https://theconversation.com/water-in-the-firing-line-as-israel-targets-gazas-infrastructure-29867"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">sewage plants</a> – in the
2014 war, made matters much worse.</p>
<p>A comprehensive peace deal, in theory, could
have eliminated the challenges by connecting Gaza to the
West Bank, where the vast Mountain Aquifer is big enough
to drown Gaza’s water crisis.</p>
<p>As it is, there is no peace. The two territories are
splintered, and Israel has effective control over all of
the water – from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.</p>
<p>As a health epidemic looms, experts, politicians,
humanitarian officials and ordinary Gazans are left to
debate the best way out of Gaza’s water catastrophe.</p>
<p><strong>‘Stolen by the Israelis’</strong></p>
<p>“We have 15 percent of our water resources, and the
rest is stolen by the Israelis,” says Mazen Al Banna,
deputy minister for the Hamas government’s water
authority.</p>
<p>As he speaks, the wail of an ambulance and a slow
mournful dirge pass by the minister’s Gaza City office –
a memorial for three Gazans killed in Israeli air
attacks the previous day.</p>
<p>Decades ago, Israel captured the Jordan
River, directing much of its flow into Israel’s National
Water Carrier.</p>
<p>Equally important, it controls the Mountain
Aquifer, exercising its power under the Oslo accords to
prohibit Palestinians from drilling wells – even though
the aquifer lies almost entirely beneath the West Bank.</p>
<p>“And this is against international law,” says
Al Banna. “I’m talking about Palestinian water rights.
It is very important.”</p>
<p>Yet arguing for Palestinian water rights is akin to
debating the right of return for Palestinian
refugees. It may be inscribed in international law, but
it remains a distant and faltering prospect within the
current political reality.</p>
<p>Instead, Hamas ministers and everyone else in Gaza must
contend with Israel’s ongoing economic siege, which has
restricted the movement of basic goods, including
medical supplies and crucial parts for water
infrastructure.</p>
<p>“Occupation and siege are the primary impediments to
the successful promotion of public health in the Gaza
Strip,” declared a 2018 study in the Lancet, which cited
“significant and deleterious effects to health care.”</p>
<p>According to a 2017 report by the Israeli human rights
group <a
href="https://www.btselem.org/gaza-strip/gaza-strip-siege-gaza-and-intensified-economic-sanctions"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">B’tselem</a>: “During
the siege, the health system has further deteriorated
due to the lack of medical equipment, medicines, and
rescue vehicles, and because of the frequent, prolonged
power blackouts.”</p>
<p>The Israeli siege sharply restricts the movement of
people and materials to and from Gaza – including
“dual-use” materials it claims could serve both civilian
and military purposes.</p>
<p>This is a direct reason why nearly half the population
is unemployed, and an increasing number of Gazans –
now more than three-quarters of the population –
are dependent on humanitarian aid.</p>
<p>The blockade has also delayed the entry of vital water
infrastructure – in some cases, for years at a time.</p>
<p>A proposed desalination plant for Gaza City, for
example – one of a series of proposed plants – has been
delayed since 2010 because of dual-use restrictions.</p>
<p>“Eight years,” says Yasmin Bashir, project coordinator
for Gaza’s Coastal Municipal Water Utility. “We got the
funding in 2012. This plant is supposed to serve the
people who are suffering from bad quality, high salinity
water.”</p>
<p>For years Bashir continued to submit “a long list” of
material for Israeli approval, including pipes, pumps,
and spare parts for the desalination plant.</p>
<p>“But because of the blockade and frequent closure, that
delayed the material entry into Gaza.”</p>
<p>And that is just one project.</p>
<p>“We manage more than 25 projects nowadays,” Bashir
added.</p>
<p>Now, even voices within Israel’s military and security
infrastructure are sounding warnings.</p>
<p>According to a 2017 report by Israel’s Institute for
National Security Studies, “severe limits on access and
movement imposed by Israel and <a
href="https://www.aljazeera.com/topics/country/egypt.html">Egypt</a> have
hindered post-conflict repair and reconstruction.”</p>
<p>Israel’s long list of dual-use items, according to the
report, “includes 23 essential items” needed for
Gaza’s WASH sector (water, sewage and hygiene), “such as
pumps, drilling equipment, and chemicals for water
purification.”</p>
<p><strong>Is desalination the solution?</strong></p>
<p>A consensus is now emerging between the Palestinian
Authority, the UN, international donors, and even, it
appears, the Israeli army, to establish a network of
large desalination and sewage plants.</p>
<p>This solution carries an, at least, 500 million
euro price tag, and is years away from operation, at
best – if it’s ever built.</p>
<p>“Of course Gaza needs this project,” says Rebhi al
Sheikh, former deputy minister for the Ramallah-based
Palestinian Water Authority.</p>
<p>Others criticise the large, expensive development
solution as inappropriate technology for an impoverished
population that would struggle to afford desalinated
water.</p>
<p>“The fantastic plans,” says Ramallah-based German
hydrologist Clemens Messerschmid, fail to account for
the fact that “Gaza can’t afford it. You just start
crying if you look at the GDP.”</p>
<p>He argues that outside contractors, including in
Israel, would be the biggest beneficiaries of the
desalination scheme.</p>
<p>Perhaps more to the point, says Messerschmid, the
amount of water to be produced by the plant
won’t ultimately meet Gaza’s needs.</p>
<p>“You don’t reach these quantities under realistic
conditions in Gaza.”</p>
<p>Yet the desalination plan appears to be gaining
momentum.</p>
<p>The PA’s concerns about Gaza’s water crisis are joined
by humanitarian agencies, foreign governments, and
even, it appears, an emergency response committee of the
Israeli army.</p>
<p>In a Gaza Emergency Response document circulated to
unnamed “Friends and Colleagues,” the Israeli army calls
for “an immediate humanitarian response” to “enhance the
energy supply” and “increase the access to potable
water” in Gaza.</p>
<p>Despite the desalination push, a pilot plant in
southern Gaza barely operates.</p>
<p>A midday visit in late summer revealed a quiet plant;
birds were chirping in the rafters above the idle plant
floor: no power.</p>
<p>“We don’t have more than four hours these
days,” said plant manager Kamal Abu Moamar. “But we
hope.”</p>
<p>He is waiting for his superiors, PA ministers to solve
the problem. “But we don’t know how or when.”</p>
<p>Even if the plants are built, there’s no guarantee they
would remain standing. Some officials question
whether Israel would decide to bomb the desalination
plants in the next Gaza war, just as it bombed Gaza’s
power plant and other critical infrastructure in
previous wars.</p>
<p>“Nobody can tell Israel that you are doing the wrong
thing,” says Hamas’s Al Banna. “Israel is doing
everything against international law but nobody can
prevent Israel doing everything she wants to do.”</p>
<p>In the “Emergency Response” document, the Israel
army endorses the Gaza desalination plan, but so far has
offered no guarantees it wouldn’t target these plants in
the next war.</p>
<p>Al Jazeera contacted an Israeli army spokesman a dozen
times, but did not receive a response by time the of
publishing.</p>
<p>So the question came to Gregor von Medeazza, a UNICEF
water and sanitation expert working in Gaza: Under the
circumstances, is investing hundreds of millions in
donor funds wasn’t too big a risk?</p>
<p>“Any infrastructure is a risk” he said, “[But] what is
the way forward?”</p>
<p><strong>Beyond Gaza’s borders </strong></p>
<p>Other risks abound, both with Gaza’s water
and its sewage, which flows into the sea at a rate
of 110 million litres a day.</p>
<p>These risks flow well beyond Gaza’s borders, flowing
north in the currents.</p>
<p>Gidon Bromberg, director of Ecopeace Middle East, based
in Tel Aviv, said Gaza sewage led to the closure of
Israeli beaches, and even at one point the shutdown of
the desalination plant in Ashkelon, which supplies
Israel with 15 percent of its drinking water.</p>
<p>Bromberg says Israelis cannot continue to ignore the
humanitarian disaster in Gaza.</p>
<p>He called it “a ticking time bomb”, and warned of an
outbreak of pandemic disease – a direct consequence of
Gaza’s contaminated water.</p>
<p>If that happens, Bromberg says, Gazans could flock to
the fence on Israel’s border – not “with stones or
rockets,” but “with buckets”, demanding clean water.</p>
<p>“God forbid if the military on either side, Israel or
Egypt, starts shooting people approaching the fence,
desperate for clean water.”</p>
<p><em>~ Al Jazeera/Days of Palestine</em></p>
<p><em>This article is the second of a two-part series on
Gaza’s water crisis. The first, <a
href="http://imemc.org/article/contaminated-drinking-water-in-gaza-spurs-blue-baby-syndrome/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener">which examines Gaza’s
water and health catastrophe</a>, has been
previously published.</em></p>
<p><em><strong><br>
</strong></em></p>
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