Israel's blockade causes water crisis in Gaza - 14 Sept 09:
"Before the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip was imposed, several repair works were under way to improve sanitation in the area.
But the projects have now been on hold for more than three years due to the siege.
The United Nations says the water system in Gaza is on the verge of collapse.
Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros, reporting from Gaza, explains how overworked and outdated pipelines are polluting the water and making Palestinians ill."
Gaza’s water supply in danger of collapse, warns UN report
Source: UN News Center
14 September 2009 – The Gaza Strip’s underground water system is in serious danger of collapse after recent conflict compounded years of overuse and contamination, a report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) today warns.
The UNEP report on the environmental condition of Gaza following Israel’s military operation in the region in late 2008 calls for the aquifer – supplying 1.5 million Palestinians with agricultural and drinking water – to be “rested” and alternative sources to be found.
“Unless the trend is reversed now, damage could take centuries to reverse,” said the environmental assessment report, which follows the hostilities in Gaza in December 2008 and January this year.
“Since the aquifer is a continuum with Egypt and Israel, any such action must be coordinated with these countries,” it stressed.
UNEP estimated that more than $1.5 billion may be needed over 20 years to restore the aquifer back to health, including the establishment of desalination plants to take pressure off the underground water supplies.
The key concerns contained in the report include a rise in salt-water intrusion from the sea caused by over-extraction of ground water, pollution from sewage and agricultural run-off, with toxic levels high enough to put infants at risk of nitrate poisoning.
“Many of the impacts of the recent hostilities have exacerbated environmental degradation that has been years in the making – environmental degradation that does not end at the borders of the Gaza Strip but also affect the health and welfare of those living beyond,” said Achim Steiner UNEP Executive Director.
The report examined the direct impact of the three-week Israeli offensive, which had the stated aim of ending rocket attacks by Hamas and other groups, and resulted in the deaths of at least 1,300 Palestinians and injuries to some 5,300.
It also assessed the likely economic costs of the hostilities – which reduced buildings and other infrastructure in Gaza to rubble causing 600,000 tons of debris – and recommends levels of investment needed to secure rehabilitation, recovery and the longer-term sustainability in the area.
The report calculates a cost of over $7 million for the removal and safe disposal of rubble, some of which is also contaminated with asbestos. It said another $11 million would be needed to cover the damage to farmers’ livelihoods and for clean-up measures, with an estimated 17 per cent of cultivated land – including orchards and greenhouses – severely damaged.
Other consequences underscored in the report include sewage spills as a result of power cuts to treatment facilities, a build-up of hazardous hospital wastes at landfill sites generated in part as a result of the numbers injured, and the collapse of refuse collection services. It puts the cost of decommissioning existing landfills and establishing new solid waste management facilities at over $40 million.
“The assessments conducted and the findings presented here identify and document a serious challenge to the environmental sustainability of the Gaza Strip,” said Mr. Steiner.
“The hard facts and figures, alongside the indicative investment estimates presented in this report, should assist all concerned parties to understand the gravity of the situation in order to provide transformative solutions,” added Mr. Steiner.
Palestine Video - A Palestine Vlog
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
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Selected Videos
- ***Alnakba [The Catastrophe] - [P1] The Threads of the Conspiracy [P2] Crushing the Revolution
- ***Alnakba [The Catastrophe] - [P3] Ethnic Cleansing [P4] Nakba Continued
- **Al Nakba [La Catástrofe] - [P1] Los Hilos de la Conspiración [P2] Aplastar la Revoución
- **AlNakba [La Catásrofe] - [P3] Limpieza Étnica
- *A Palestinian Woman
- *Azmi Bishara - Interview:
- *Azmi Bishara on Israeli Apartheid
- *Azmi Bishara: The Last Colonial Question
- *Blood & Religion, Unmasking the Israeli State
- *De Facto State of Lawlessness
- *Drying up Palestine
- *Edward Said - On Orientalism
- *Edward Said: Lecture The Myth of 'The Clash of Civilzations'
- *Edward Said: Memory, Inequality and Power: Palestine and the Universality of Human Rights
- *Edward Said: Palestine, Iraq and U.S. Policy
- *Francis Boyle - Palestinians and International law
- *From Occupation to Enclosure: Fragmenting the Palestinian State 1 - Diana Buttu"
- *From Occupation to Enclosure: Fragmenting the Palestinian State 2 - Amira Hass"
- *George Bisharat - Ending the Palestinian Nakba
- *Ghada Karmi at Yale
- *Ghada Karmi: Why Israel is a Failed State
- *Ilan Pappe - Interview
- *Ilan Pappe - Israel's 1967 Plan for the West Bank and Gaza Strip
- *Ilan Pappe on the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
- *In the Spider's Web
- *Interview: Ghassan Andoni
- *Israel's Secret Weapon (Israel's WMD)
- *Jeff Halper - Israeli Apartheid and the Paths to a Just Peace
- *Jeff Halper- The United States, Israel and the American Jewish Community
- *Jenin Jenin
- *John Pilger - Palestine is still the issue
- *John Pilger - The War on Democracy
- *Landscapes of Occupation in Palestine
- *Muhammad Jaradat & Eitan Bronstein: 1948 and the Right of Return
- *Noam Chomsky - Middle East Crisis
- *Noam Chomsky on Gaza - MIT
- *Norman Fikelstein - The Israel-Palestine conflict: what we can learn from Gandhi
- *Norman Finkelstein speech at Columbia University (3 parts video)
- *Occupation 101
- *Off The Charts - If Americans Knew
- *Palestine Street -1- The Lost Bride
- *Palestine Street -2- The Bride in exile
- *Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land: Media & the Israel-Palestine Conflict
- *People and The Land: The Story of a People Under Occupation
- *Phyllis Bennis - "Dual Occupations: Iraq and Palestine in Bush's Empire"
- *Rachel: An American Conscience
- *Rashid Khalidi - Palestine: 40 Years of Occupation, 60 Years of Dispossession
- *Rep. Paul Findley Dares to Speak Out -- Again! AIPAC exposed
- *Salman Abu Sitta: Atlas Palestine
- *Salman Abu Sitta: The Geography of Occupation
- *Secret WMD in Israel
- *Technical Error at Beit Hanoun
- *Tegenlicht ('Backlight') A Documentary on the Israel Lobby -
- *The Bases Are Loaded: US Permanent Military Presence in Iraq
- *The Easiest Targets: The Israeli Policy of Strip Searching Women and Children
- *The influence of the Israel Lobby on American foreign policy
- *The Iron Wall
- *The Israeli Wall in Palestinian Lands
- *The Killing Zone
- *The Unrecognized
- *This is Not Your War
- *Wall of Shame
- Watch "If Americans Knew" Videos
- Watch Alternate Focus Videos
- Watch B'Tselem Videos
- watch ISM Videos
- Watch pdxjustice Videos
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