As War Halts, the Environmental Devastation in Gaza Runs Deep

[Brenda]

By Fred Pearce • February 6, 2025
https://e360.yale.edu/features/gaza-war-environment
(long article worth the read)

The natural environment took an unprecedented pounding during the war in Gaza. And as the territory’s inhabitants have returned home since the ceasefire, the extent of the environmental devastation is becoming clear, raising crucial questions about how to reconstruct Gaza in the face of severe and potentially irreversible damage to the environment.

The war has knocked out water supplies and disabled sewage treatment facilities, causing raw effluent to flow across the land, polluting the Mediterranean and underground water reserves essential for irrigating crops. More than two-thirds of Gaza’s farmland, including wells and greenhouses, has been damaged or destroyed by bombardment and military earthworks.

Detailed satellite images taken since the ceasefire began on January 19 show 80 percent of Gaza’s trees lost. In addition, vital wetlands, sand dunes, coastal waters, and the only significant river, the Wadi Gaza, have all suffered extensively. The UN Environment Programme warns that the stripping of trees, shrubs, and crops has so badly damaged the soils of the once-fertile, biodiverse, and well-watered territory that it faces long-term desertification.

Nature is the “silent victim of Israel’s war on Gaza,” says Saeed Bagheri, a lecturer in international law at the University of Reading in the U.K.

Horrible deliberate destruction to the environment, the people and an entire culture. Beyond disturbing that Chump wants this to be America's Riviera.

Hey US MSM - how about demanding a cognitive test for Chump with these disturbing, seemingly hourly EO's???

I won't hold my breath.

[AloeVera]

1. Hamas sure got around.

Hiding in greenhouses, farmlands and sewage treatment and water storage 9facilities! I gather their "human shields" did not save them in these places either?



It was always a lie in service of rationalizing the wanton destruction. Can't believe people fell for it. Or maybe they didn't...

[C0RI0LANUS]

2. White (now it's "Judeo-Christian") imperialism over darker-skinned natives and non-believers began in 1492.

When Columbus landed in the islands now known as the Bahamas, he encountered the Arawak Indians, whose kindness and generosity he noted in his journal and letters. Columbus quickly took a group of Arawaks captive, hoping they could lead him to gold. He then sailed to Hispaniola-Haiti and the Dominican Republic-where he enslaved even more Indians.

After returning to Spain and reporting on the incredible wealth in the islands of the “New World,” the monarchs gave Columbus 17 ships and more than 1,200 men to plunder the Caribbean. His new expedition went from island to island gathering slaves and gold with unprecedented brutality.

I went scuba-diving in Eilat (southern Israel) many years ago. My friend told me real estate lies behind the land grabbing. But on DU we'll keep reading Islamophobic or Arab-American scapegoating OPs on the evils of Hamas and "hijab-wearers" to distract us from the real culprit in the 2024 Kamala loss and the environmental catastrophe facing Palestinians in Gaza.



Sources:

https://www.liberationschool.org/the-legacy-of-christopher-columbus/

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/19/israel-where-genocide-meets-real-estate/