One of the many ways the Occupation impacts Israelis

How Gaza's electricity crisis is becoming Israel's water catastropheThe electricity crisis in Gaza is now starting to hurt the Israelis

How Gaza's electricity crisis is becoming Israel's water catastrophe

"In May, Gaza’s sewage system collapsed...Gaza’s sewage plants have ceased functioning due to the lack of electricity, and left wastewater flows into Israel untreated.

'Without electricity, water cannot be produced and wastewater cannot be treated,' said Eilon Adar, a hydrologist and the former director of Ben-Gurion University’s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Department of Environmental Hydrology and Microbiology in Beersheba. 'An aquifer knows no borders. Water does not stop at a border. At the moment the damage is negligible, but Gaza is now dumping its untreated wastewater near the Beit Lahia wastewater treatment plant. This site, founded a number of years ago with Israel’s agreement, is only about 200 meters [660 feet] from Israel’s border and the [effluent] ‘lake’ seeps into the coastal aquifer.' "

How Gaza's electricity crisis is becoming Israel's water catastrophe [via AlMonitor]

The “making the desert bloom” myth and more

The 'making the desert bloom' myth has long masked Israel's occupation and degradation of Palestinian natural resources

A strong rebuttal to a recent Scientific American article on Israel’s desalination industry

“although Israel propagated a perception of ingenious Jewish agricultural practices (through PR narratives of Jewish exceptionalism like that employed in the Scientific American article), Israel’s foreign agriculture was actually destructive to Palestine’s ecological balance. With 80 percent of available water going to agriculture, which contributed less than 3 percent of Israel’s economy, Israel continued to sap water resources to further the Zionist colonial scheme, an ecological contradiction to the local environment.”  

Israel's desalination miracle, Santa Claus and other fairy tales [via Middle East Eye]

Hydro-Apartheid sums it up

Palestinians are forced to live with water shortages—and cut-offs

"Whether in the occupied Gaza Strip or the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the supply of water flowing into Palestinian homes is strictly capped or obstructed by Israel."

Israel’s hydro-apartheid keeps West Bank thirsty [via The Electronic Intifada]

Nowhere is freshwater scarcer than in the Arab world

Water scarcity contributes to violence.

 “Water can even be wielded as a weapon. In Syria, the Islamic State has seized control of the upstream basins of the two main rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. The fact that nearly half of all Arabs depend on freshwater inflows from non-Arab countries, including Turkey and the upstream states on the Nile River, may serve to exacerbate water insecurity further.”

Arab World’s biggest Problem not Terrorism or Fundamentalism but Water! [via Informed Comment]