Dit terwijl 97% van de Gazaanse watervoorraad is verontreinigd met rioolwater en zout, dit was begin vorig jaar al zo en de situatie is sindsdien niet verbeterd....... VN woordvoerder Robert Piper noemt de situatie ernstig en stelt dat de organisatie voor wie hij werkt achterloopt met het voorzien van de Gazanen van drinkwater........ (overigens de situatie op de West bank niet veel beter dan die in de Gazastrook en de volgende gegevens zijn ook daar voor het grootste deel van toepassing, behalve dan de genoemde verontreiniging van de grondwatervoorraad....)
Hierbij komen ook de verdoemde Oslo akkoorden weer om de hoek kijken: destijds werd afgesproken dat Israël (dat toentertijd een deel van de Gazastrook bezet hield voor illegale nederzettingen) de grondwatervoorraden voor de Gazastrook (en West Bank) beheert, waarbij de verdeling werd vastgesteld op 4 keer de hoeveelheid voor Israël en de rest voor de Palestijnen. Echter in de praktijk gebruikt Israël meer dan 80% van de watervoorraad..... Israël verkoopt water aan de Palestijnen tegen de hoofdprijs, terwijl de zwembaden in de illegale nederzettingen (dat zijn alle nederzettingen.....) en elders t.b.v. de Israëliërs goed gevuld zijn......
Men mag van Israël in de Gazastrook geen putten slaan (in wat hoger gelegen gebied waar dit water nog wel bruikbaar is) en het is de Gazanen zelfs verboden om regenwater op te vangen in door hen gegraven bekkens......... Lees ook het volgende Haaretz artikel: 'Otherwise Occupied // The Israeli 'Watergate' Scandal: The Facts About Palestinian Water', een link die je ook in het volgende artikel tegen zal komen)
Israël heeft het grootste deel van de infrastructuur in de Gazastrook vernield en ook elektriciteit wordt de Gazanen maar al te vaak onthouden (veelal heeft men 6 uur per dag elektriciteit...), nadat Israël de Palestijnse elektriciteitscentrale in 2014 aan flenters heeft gebombardeerd...... Als gevolg daarvan werken ook de sanitaire voorzieningen in dit uiterst dichtbevolkte gebied voor het grootste deel niet, een gebied dat in feite een openluchtgevangenis, of SS stijl getto is.......... Pompen in de Gazastrook werken niet meer en de fascistische apartheidsstaat Israël houdt de import van onderdelen ter reparatie tegen......
Ongelofelijk dat de wereld keer op keer Israël laat wegkomen met deze oorlogsmisdaden, met deze misdaden tegen de menselijkheid en het aanrichten van enorme bloedbaden onder de Palestijnse bevolking........ Waar zijn de hypocriete politici die vooraan staan te schreeuwen als het om landen als Rusland, Iran, Noord-Korea en Syrië gaat, waartegen men ofwel boycots heeft ingesteld en openlijk dan wel verhuld een verandering van regime eist ,onder meer gebaseerd op 'mensenrechtenschendingen.......'
Terecht wordt in de kop boven het volgende artikel van Darius Shahtahmasebi de vraag gesteld of er hier sprake is van een genocide.... Als het zo doorgaat zal het niet lang meer duren of het zal duidelijk zijn, dat Israël bezig is met een genocide uit te voeren op de Palestijnen........
Lees het volgende uitstekende artikel van Darius Shahtahmasebi:
Genocide? As Gaza Dries Out, Israel Turns Off Fresh Water Spigot
Rather than heeding the warnings from the UN to open up Gaza’s blockade and allow vital aid, what we have witnessed over the course of the last decade is a periodic all-out Israeli assault on Gaza’s vital infrastructure.
February 15th, 2018
GAZA (Analysis) — Near the end of last month, Haaretz reported that, according to an expert hydrologist, 97 percent of Gaza’s drinking water has been contaminated by sewage and salt. The UN also confirmed that this was the case early last year, and clearly, the situation has remained unchanged even up until 2018. Robert Piper, the UN’s local coordinator for humanitarian and development activities, has called the situation “really very serious” and stated that “[w]e are falling far behind the demand for clean drinking water for Gazans.”
This
kind of mistreatment is part and parcel of an overall package of
deprivation that continues to plague the Palestinian people. There
are some 2 million residents in Gaza affected by this egregious
policy, famously one of the most densely populated areas on the
planet. Gaza’s water resources are fully controlled by Israel and
the division of groundwater is something that was provided for in the
Oslo II Accord. However, despite the fact that under the Accord
Israel is allocated
four times the
Palestinian portion of water resources, it has
been revealed that
Israel has been extracting 80 percent more water from the West Bank
than it agreed to.
In
2009, the World Bank wrote that
the responsibility was on the government of Israel to recognize that
water and sanitation is a central component of the Gaza Strip
humanitarian crisis and make arrangements to facilitate fuel
distribution to some 170 water and sewage pumps in Gaza; maintain the
Beit Lahiya Sewage Lake; and restore regular electricity supply in
order to reduce dependence on fuel for generators.
According to the World Bank, at the time, almost all of Gaza’s population was without running water and was dependent on stored water supplies. The World Bank also noted that nearly all sewage and water pumps were out of operation due to lack of electricity and diminished fuel supplies, something that we will address below. But once again, these deficiencies fall squarely on the shoulders of the Israeli government, which is wholly responsible for Gaza’s electricity and water supply.
In order to rectify the issue, the Deputy UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Maxwell Gaylard, called for the immediate opening of Gaza’s crossings to allow the entry of spare parts and materials critical to the restoration of Gaza’s water and sanitation services. Israel famously closed Gaza’s crossing points in June 2007 and the local population has been suffering ever since.
However, there are many other factors that have helped to create this humanitarian catastrophe. Israel routinely unleashes bombing campaigns on the Gaza Strip every few years, targeting vital infrastructure, including destroying Gaza’s only power plant in 2014. The blockade single-handedly prevents vital materials and equipment from making its way into Gaza, making redevelopment impossible, even some four years later.
Electricity supply
According to the World Bank, at the time, almost all of Gaza’s population was without running water and was dependent on stored water supplies. The World Bank also noted that nearly all sewage and water pumps were out of operation due to lack of electricity and diminished fuel supplies, something that we will address below. But once again, these deficiencies fall squarely on the shoulders of the Israeli government, which is wholly responsible for Gaza’s electricity and water supply.
In order to rectify the issue, the Deputy UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Maxwell Gaylard, called for the immediate opening of Gaza’s crossings to allow the entry of spare parts and materials critical to the restoration of Gaza’s water and sanitation services. Israel famously closed Gaza’s crossing points in June 2007 and the local population has been suffering ever since.
However, there are many other factors that have helped to create this humanitarian catastrophe. Israel routinely unleashes bombing campaigns on the Gaza Strip every few years, targeting vital infrastructure, including destroying Gaza’s only power plant in 2014. The blockade single-handedly prevents vital materials and equipment from making its way into Gaza, making redevelopment impossible, even some four years later.
Electricity supply
A
Palestinian family warm themselves on a fire outside their makeshift
home during a power cut in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
(AP/ Khalil Hamra
According to
the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the Gaza Strip
endures dry, hot summers that are subject to drought.
Exploiting these conditions, Israel has used electricity as an inventive point of leverage to torture the Palestinian people, while the international community has stayed largely silent. This is the same international community that cites human rights abuses in Syria, Iran, and North Korea to promote military intervention and regime change to suit its geopolitical needs, yet stays silent as 2 million Gazan residents are suffering immensely in what is widely regarded as an open-air prison and the world’s largest ghetto.
On a good day, residents in Gaza over the last six months have been receiving three to four hours of electricity per day, the flow of which is controlled by Israel. However, according to the Times of Israel, Gazans were only able to obtain four hours’ worth of electricity thanks mainly to fuel supplies sent from Egypt. On a bad day, some estimates cite that Gazans have been receiving as little as two hours electricity per day if any at all.
After the Palestinian Authority said it would begin resuming payment for Israeli electricity flows to the Gaza Strip (at a cost of some $2.8 million per month), Israel announced it would restore its share of the electricity supply. However, this will increase Gaza’s electricity supply only to approximately six hours’ worth of electricity per day. The outage of electricity is expected to last for 12 hours a day at least, according to the Electronic Intifada.
One should bear in mind that, with a Gazan population of around 2 million residents, the effects of this stringent electricity supply are felt far beyond just the average household. In August of last year, Gaza’s children’s hospitals also warned of a health “catastrophe,” as power cuts routinely take place during four-hour-long dialysis treatment.
For years, Israel has attempted to shed blame from its inhumane policies and instead point to the debacle solely on an internal Palestinian issue between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Last year, Human Rights Watch’s director for the region, Omar Shakir, told the right-wing pro-Israel publication Algemeiner that because Israel is “legally the occupying power,” it bore the brunt of the responsibility for this crisis. “Israel controls the borders, the airspace, the waters of Gaza, so Israel has an obligation that goes beyond merely responding to a request from Palestinian authorities,” Shakir reportedly said.
The Electronic Intifada also notes that Israel has been using electricity as a politically viable blackmail tool, with Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) stating it would restore electricity after Israeli prisoners held in Gaza were returned, as well as the bodies of two Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul. It is also worth noting that Egypt, too, shares a great dealof the blame for this horrific treatment of the Palestinian people
Exploiting these conditions, Israel has used electricity as an inventive point of leverage to torture the Palestinian people, while the international community has stayed largely silent. This is the same international community that cites human rights abuses in Syria, Iran, and North Korea to promote military intervention and regime change to suit its geopolitical needs, yet stays silent as 2 million Gazan residents are suffering immensely in what is widely regarded as an open-air prison and the world’s largest ghetto.
On a good day, residents in Gaza over the last six months have been receiving three to four hours of electricity per day, the flow of which is controlled by Israel. However, according to the Times of Israel, Gazans were only able to obtain four hours’ worth of electricity thanks mainly to fuel supplies sent from Egypt. On a bad day, some estimates cite that Gazans have been receiving as little as two hours electricity per day if any at all.
After the Palestinian Authority said it would begin resuming payment for Israeli electricity flows to the Gaza Strip (at a cost of some $2.8 million per month), Israel announced it would restore its share of the electricity supply. However, this will increase Gaza’s electricity supply only to approximately six hours’ worth of electricity per day. The outage of electricity is expected to last for 12 hours a day at least, according to the Electronic Intifada.
One should bear in mind that, with a Gazan population of around 2 million residents, the effects of this stringent electricity supply are felt far beyond just the average household. In August of last year, Gaza’s children’s hospitals also warned of a health “catastrophe,” as power cuts routinely take place during four-hour-long dialysis treatment.
For years, Israel has attempted to shed blame from its inhumane policies and instead point to the debacle solely on an internal Palestinian issue between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Last year, Human Rights Watch’s director for the region, Omar Shakir, told the right-wing pro-Israel publication Algemeiner that because Israel is “legally the occupying power,” it bore the brunt of the responsibility for this crisis. “Israel controls the borders, the airspace, the waters of Gaza, so Israel has an obligation that goes beyond merely responding to a request from Palestinian authorities,” Shakir reportedly said.
The Electronic Intifada also notes that Israel has been using electricity as a politically viable blackmail tool, with Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) stating it would restore electricity after Israeli prisoners held in Gaza were returned, as well as the bodies of two Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul. It is also worth noting that Egypt, too, shares a great dealof the blame for this horrific treatment of the Palestinian people
Assaults on Gaza
A
Palestinian girl walks next to destroyed houses, in the Shijaiyah
neighborhood of Gaza City after a devastating bombing campaign by
Israel in March of 2015.
Rather than heeding the warnings from the UN to open up Gaza’s blockade and allow vital aid, what we have witnessed over the course of the last decade is a periodic all-out assault on Gaza’s vital infrastructure.
Since the blockade was enforced, there have been three major IDF operations in Gaza: Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009, Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, and Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
Following Operation Cast Lead, the World Bank reported that there had been severe damage to the water and sanitation infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
After Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the UN reported that more than 20,000 Palestinian homes, 148 schools and 60 healthcare centers in Gaza were damaged or destroyed. Israel even bombed a disability center at the time. Gaza has no air force, no air defenses, and no substantive military to defend its people.
While most pro-Israeli pundits would point to Hamas rocket fire as an excuse for the interventions, the truth on the ground tells a different story.
The Submission to the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict, published by Truthout, quite clearly demonstrates that Israeli airstrikes and ground attacks preceded Hamas rocket fire; and that Hamas rocket-fire had been nonexistent since Israel’s previous assault in 2012. In other words, Hamas had been abiding by its terms of the ceasefire — even while Israel had been starving Gaza of basic human rights, as argued and outlined above.
Further, in July 2014, The Guardian published a blog by investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed, which claimed Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza in 2014 was rooted in a desire to control Palestinian gas off the coast of Gaza and had nothing to do with concerns about Hamas rocket fire. The Guardian axed his blog not long after.
The Jerusalem debacle
Israeli
police fire tear gas at Palestine protesters during protests against
US. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the
capital of Israel. Ramallah, Occupied Palestine. Feb 2, 2018.
(AP/Majdi Mohammed)
Israel modus
operandi has
been to attack Gaza by punishing the civilian population with these
heavy sanctions affecting its basic life necessities. It is almost as
if the Israeli government has been attempting to provoke a response
from the Gaza Strip, which could then be used again to justify yet
another intervention — given it has been proven that Israel has
lied about its stated reasons for intervention in the past. This
response, however, never came in the form that Israel might have
hoped for.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel, inflaming an already tense situation, was the political icing on the cake of Palestinian suffering. Regardless of one’s views on the Israel-Palestine conflict, which continues to divide people all along the political spectrum, the fact remains that this decision alone pushed an already volatile situation to a point of outright violence. According to Reuters, since Trump’s infamous decision, at least 13 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces.
Further, it wasn’t long after Trump’s announcement that Israel began resuming air strikes in the Gaza Strip. Perhaps this is a sign of things to come in the not-too-distant future. While tensions are heating up between Israel and Syria, Lebanon and Iran, it has been largely overlooked that Hamas and Israel are preparing for an imminent war even as we speak.
Gaza in crisis
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel, inflaming an already tense situation, was the political icing on the cake of Palestinian suffering. Regardless of one’s views on the Israel-Palestine conflict, which continues to divide people all along the political spectrum, the fact remains that this decision alone pushed an already volatile situation to a point of outright violence. According to Reuters, since Trump’s infamous decision, at least 13 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces.
Further, it wasn’t long after Trump’s announcement that Israel began resuming air strikes in the Gaza Strip. Perhaps this is a sign of things to come in the not-too-distant future. While tensions are heating up between Israel and Syria, Lebanon and Iran, it has been largely overlooked that Hamas and Israel are preparing for an imminent war even as we speak.
Gaza in crisis
A
Palestinian man and his son warm themselves by a fire during cold,
rainy weather on the outskirts of the Khan Younis refugee camp in the
southern Gaza Strip, Jan. 5, 2018. (AP/ Khalil Hamra)
In
2015, the UN predicted that
Gaza would become uninhabitable by 2020. Not pulling any punches, the
UN concedes the cause of this crisis is based on two important
factors: Israeli military operations and the decades-long blockade
that has crippled Gaza’s economy and infrastructure. Reportedly,
Gaza has an unemployment
rate of some 50 percent,
the highest unemployment
rate in the world,
with a youth unemployment rate of at least 60
percent.
According to The New York Times, UN officials are warning that Gaza is facing a total collapse. Rather than exporting some much-needed freedom, human rights and democracy, the Trump administration instead announced that it would withhold $65 million from UNRWA — vital money required for providing basic necessities for some 1.2 million Palestinians in Gaza. The Times also wrote:
According to The New York Times, UN officials are warning that Gaza is facing a total collapse. Rather than exporting some much-needed freedom, human rights and democracy, the Trump administration instead announced that it would withhold $65 million from UNRWA — vital money required for providing basic necessities for some 1.2 million Palestinians in Gaza. The Times also wrote:
Still, whether out of bluster or desperation, Gazans both in and out of power have begun talking openly about confronting Israel over its blockade in the kind of mass action that could easily lead to casualties and escalation.”
No
matter how one cuts it, whether Israel has been intentionally trying
to elicit a response from Gaza or not, the fact remains that the
Israeli government is intentionally pursuing a long list of policies
that will almost certainly lead to a hostile escalation, as the
international community continues to turn a blind eye to the everyday
suffering of the Palestinian people. Israeli policies indeed border
on a systematic genocide that will, if unchecked, completely erode
the Gaza Strip to nothingness in just a few short years.
Top Photo | Palestinian children fill their bottles with water from a UNICEF tap in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo: UNICEF)
Darius Shahtahmasebi is a practicing attorney with an interest in human rights, international law, and journalism. He is a graduate of the University of Otago, where he obtained degrees in Law and Japanese. Follow him on Twitter at @TVsLeaking.
==========================================
Tot slot nog dit: Ahed al-Tamimi, een meisje van 17 zit nog steeds vast in een militaire gevangenis, dit vanwege het in het gezicht slaan van een Israëlische militair......
Free Ahed Tamimi and all other Palestinian kids!
Zie wat het vorige betreft ook: 'Israëlische rechtbank besloot proces tegen 17 jarig meisje Ahed al-Tamimi achter gesloten deuren te houden >> voor haar eigen bestwil..... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!'
Zie ook: 'Ahed al-Tamimi (nu 17 jaar) nog steeds vast na slaan militair en ondergaat intimidatie van ondervragers......'
en: 'Israël gebruikt nieuw chemisch wapen tegen Palestijnse demonstranten in de Gazastrook'
Top Photo | Palestinian children fill their bottles with water from a UNICEF tap in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo: UNICEF)
Darius Shahtahmasebi is a practicing attorney with an interest in human rights, international law, and journalism. He is a graduate of the University of Otago, where he obtained degrees in Law and Japanese. Follow him on Twitter at @TVsLeaking.
==========================================
Tot slot nog dit: Ahed al-Tamimi, een meisje van 17 zit nog steeds vast in een militaire gevangenis, dit vanwege het in het gezicht slaan van een Israëlische militair......
Free Ahed Tamimi and all other Palestinian kids!
Zie wat het vorige betreft ook: 'Israëlische rechtbank besloot proces tegen 17 jarig meisje Ahed al-Tamimi achter gesloten deuren te houden >> voor haar eigen bestwil..... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!'
Zie ook: 'Ahed al-Tamimi (nu 17 jaar) nog steeds vast na slaan militair en ondergaat intimidatie van ondervragers......'
en: 'Israël gebruikt nieuw chemisch wapen tegen Palestijnse demonstranten in de Gazastrook'
