Another example, among hundreds, of water as a weapon

A young Palestinian boy from the West Bank village of Fasayil, Jordan valley, seen walking with a water pipe in the village. May 14, 2015. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

A young Palestinian boy from the West Bank village of Fasayil, Jordan valley, seen walking with a water pipe in the village. May 14, 2015. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Bedouins families in the Jordan Valley must spend a third of their income purchasing water.

Small Bedouin communities in the Jordan Valley must struggle for even the smallest bit of water while nearby Israeli settlements have plenty.

“More than 90 percent of the West Bank’s Jordan Valley region are Palestinians. Less than 10 percent are Israeli settlers. Yet when it comes to water distribution, it turns out, we see a different distribution: settlers are entitled to between eight and nine times more water, while Palestinian communities are subject to a policy of water deprivation. In fact, this is a policy of ethnic cleansing, whose goal is a Jordan Valley bereft of Palestinians.”

How Israel is drying out Palestinians in the Jordan Valley [via 972+ Magazine]

 

 

 

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

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]