‘Killing Me Thirstily’
29 April 2016, 19:02.
JAKARTA, Friday (Sahabat Al-Aqsha): Look into the eyes of a cancer patient in Jakarta or in many other places, and one will probably find sadness tinged with painful hopes. Look into the eyes of a cancer patient in Gaza, and one will find raw desperation.
Utter desperation was what the team of Sahabat Al-Aqsha found in the eyes of four cancer patients during its 2013 trip into the Gaza Strip, when it was unveiling one of its projects: Al-Huda Cancer Treatment Center. The four –one woman, three males– were but a few of the cancer patients of Gaza whose number keeps increasing every year.
There are currently 13,000 cancer patients in Gaza – and only four oncologists. Doctors at the Al-Huda Center say Gaza has 1,500 new cancer patients every year – with dozens of kinds of cancer treatment nonexistent due to the crippling Israeli siege.
In Gaza, cancer comes from above (when the Israeli occupation forces shower it with white phosphorous bombs) and from beneath the 1,8 million population because 95% of Gaza Strip’s water is undrinkable. Gaza Strip’s water is contaminated with sea water, and it is full of nitrate – a carcinogenic. The levels of both chemicals soared in 2014 during Israel’s bombardment of sewage pipes and clean water pipes.
Water is a lethal weapon wielded by Israel to subjugate the Palestinians, especially in Gaza, under internationally recognized accords.
The World’s Water of the Pacific Institute (http://worldwater.org/water-conflict/) created a table of water conflicts dating as far back as the time of Prophet Nuh ‘alayhissalam and the six-day rainstorm and flooding! The chronology list clearly describes water as a “military tool” as well as act of “terrorism” perpetrated by parties with control over the resource. Israel fits the bill perfectly.
The Reality
Some 120,000 Gazans today do not have access to clean water, and a third of the population are not connected to the sanitation network. From whatever meager income they make, about one-third will have to go to pay the exorbitant water prices. On top of this is the fact mentioned above: Only five percent of this water is potable, according to a July 2015 United Nations report.
Why?
There is only one extractable water source for the 1.8 million Palestinians in the Strip, the Coastal Aquifer Basin – that is shared with Israel. Only 20 percent of this water goes to the Gazans who are situated downstream from Israel.
Yunes Mogheir, associate professor of water and environmental engineering at the Islamic University of Gaza, was quoted by Al Jazeera as saying that one of the main reasons for the water’s poor quality is the “huge increase in rates of chloride and nitrates.” These pollutants are used to measure how drinkable Gaza’s water is.
Mogheir says chloride levels, which indicate salinity, often quadruple the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended level of 250 milligrammes per litre: “In terms of nitrates, it’s the same picture. The WHO limit is 50 mg/L, and there are wells that produce water with 400 to 450 mg/L” which can have serious effects on pregnant women and even cause infant deaths.
Nitrates are a result of improper wastewater treatment, and the increased salinity is due to the overpumping of the Coastal Aquifer Basin, which is then replenished with water of varying salinity, both from the Israeli section of the Coastal Aquifer Basin and the hypersaline Mediterranean Sea.
“The solution is to increase the quantity of water coming to the aquifer and to reduce extraction” due to a dire need for groundwater, Mogheir said. “But then you need to replenish the aquifer with other means –improved wastewater treatment, increased water from the Israelis or Egyptians; these measures are easy on paper, but hard to implement in the real world.”
“Now, the Egyptians are pumping sewage and seawater into Rafah,” which will further contaminate the groundwater.
Israel has agreed to sell 10 million cubic meters of water to Gaza each year, but has almost never met the threshold. Only in March 2015 did Israel deliver an extra five million cubic metres (mcm) of water to Gaza, thereby doubling the amount that was previously delivered and, hence, honouring Article 40 of the Oslo II Accords – an interim agreement signed in 1995 meant to impose a final status for Israel and Palestine.
However, the al-Muntar reservoir that was constructed to receive the increase was destroyed by Israel during its Summer 2014 attacks on Gaza. In lieu of an acceptable reservoir, the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) began to receive the water through temporary measures. After less than a month of increased Israeli water delivery, readings from Israeli and Palestinian water metres showed a disparity of 4,000 cm – a huge shortfall between the amount the Israelis sent and the total delivered to Gaza, proving that Gaza’s water network was unprepared for even a minor increase.
So Israel is selling poor quality water to Gaza and destroying the very network needed to deliver the water to the Gazans. No wonder why a recent UN report on Gaza says that the strip will become uninhabitable by 2020 – a mere four years away.
A number of reasons compound the problems, according to the document by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
The Gaza Strip’s GDP dropped 15 percent in 2014, with 72 percent of households suffering extremely low food security and unemployment at a record high of 44 percent. Further stress was added by relentless IOF assaults. With three military operations in the last six years, coupled with almost ten years of economic blockade, prospects for recovery are looking very bleak.
The UN says that 500,000 people have been displaced in Gaza as a result of the Israeli attacks in 2014 alone. More than 20,000 Palestinian homes were destroyed, and 148 schools and 15 hospitals and 45 primary healthcare centers were severely damaged. Worse still is when the populace is deprived of the prime source of life – water. Without it, no reconstruction and no rebuilding of lives can take place. Medicine, sanitation, hygiene and crucial facilities that depend on water all suffer. Precisely the objective of Israel’s water policy.
‘Man-made’ or ‘Israeli-made’?
The Gaza water crisis has been repeatedly described as a ticking global-health time bomb. The threat of a pandemic in Gaza is real, and will certainly not be contained in Gaza alone but go across the borders.
So much has been written about how the water crisis is Gaza is man-made, and how political wills instead of technical solutions are called for. Some parties, including US Democrat Representative Jim McDermott, have suggested that Israel double the amount of water it sells to Gaza, increase its sale of electricity to Gaza, and “permits” Gaza to repair its water and electricity infrastructure – which Israel has of course repeatedly bombed.
No words about how the crisis is “Israeli-made” and that the solution would of course be to lift the blockade once and for all. Gazans young and old told the team of Sahabat al-Aqsha during its 2013 visit: “Thank you for all the gifts, but the best gift would be for you to help us lift the Israeli hisar (blockade).”
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