Israel confirmed this week that its troops were pumping seawater into a network of tunnels in Gaza, a method that environmentalists say could violate international law and have disastrous long-term consequences in the besieged Palestinian enclave. .
Media reports have speculated for weeks that the pumping was underway, although Israeli and U.S. officials, including President Joe Biden, would not confirm this when asked.
But on Wednesday, in a brief statement on “.
The IDF implemented new capabilities during the war, aiming to neutralize underground terrorist infrastructure, including by channeling large quantities of water there.
This method was developed in collaboration with @Israel_MODand is only used in places…
– Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 30, 2024
“This is an important tool in combating the threat of Hamas’ underground terrorist infrastructure,” the statement said.
This confirmation comes almost four months after the continued bombardment of the Gaza Strip which killed nearly 27,000 people. Israeli authorities have long aimed to destroy Hamas infrastructure and say the tunnels contain munitions and prisoners taken by the armed group on October 7.
But the plan to pump seawater into the tunnels raises questions about Israel’s plans to rescue these captives, and could worsen the lasting devastation of Gaza, including the enclave’s water supply:
How does the flooding occur?
In early December, media reported that Israeli forces planned to flood the tunnels with seawater in Gaza using approximately five to seven large water pumps.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Israeli army installed the pumps north of the Shati refugee camp, a seaside settlement that housed previously displaced Palestinians and located in the northern Gaza Strip. According to the report, these machines could pump thousands of cubic meters of seawater.
In mid-December, the WSJ, citing unnamed U.S. officials, again reported that the pumping had begun. Another US media outlet, ABC News, reported that the extent of the initial flooding was limited, with the Israeli military evaluating the effectiveness of the method.
Hamas, which claims its tunnels extend about 300 to 500 km (186 to 310 miles), used the underground passage to break the Israeli siege on Gaza. Palestinians use the tunnel network to smuggle food, goods, medicine and even weapons. The Palestinian territory has been under an Israeli air, land and sea blockade since 2007 and Tel Aviv decides what enters and leaves this narrow strip 10 km (6 miles) wide and 41 km (25 miles) long.
Pumping could take weeks and thousands of cubic meters of water to completely fill and destroy such a network.
Could flooding of tunnels affect Gaza’s water supply?
Environmental analysts warn that flooding the tunnels could damage the aquifer that contains Gaza’s groundwater on which the strip’s 2.3 million residents largely depend.
Mark Zeitoun, a professor at the Geneva Institute of Advanced Studies, told Tel Aviv Tribune that pumping seawater into hundreds of kilometers of tunnels dug into Gaza’s sandy, porous soil is likely to see the Salt water seeps into water sources, destroying water usually used for drinking and cooking. and irrigation.
Zeitoun, who previously worked as a water engineer in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, said Israel was using water as a “dark” weapon. The engineer is one of those who have warned since December that there could be “catastrophic” consequences if the Israeli army’s plans were confirmed.
“My first reaction was deep distress,” Zeitoun said, referring to the Israeli military’s statement Wednesday. “The injection of salt water will definitely contaminate the aquifer and that will have long-term consequences,” he said.
“It would ruin living conditions in Gaza. If we don’t respond to this kind of behavior, what’s to stop another country from doing this to another group of people in the future?
What water-related risks do Palestinians already face?
Water infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank has long been fragile. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “total blockade” of Gaza, including a ban on food and water, on October 9 as part of his military offensive.
For decades, Israel controlled the water supply to the occupied territories, turning it off or on at will. Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are not allowed to build new water wells or water facilities without obtaining a license from Israeli authorities – which is often difficult to do. Even rainwater harvesting is monitored in the West Bank. Additionally, Israeli soldiers and settlers are attacking infrastructure providing water to Palestinians.
Surrounded by an Israeli wall to the east and the sea to the west, access to drinking water, cooking and hygiene in the Gaza Strip has always been even more complicated. Residents rely on a combination of three seawater desalination plants, three pipelines sourced directly from Israel, a multitude of wells and boreholes extracting untreated water from the ground, and water packs imported from Egypt. In a pre-war context, these resources were barely sufficient for this densely populated region.
Added to the problems is the contamination of wastewater. Gaza authorities usually use about four sewage treatment plants to prevent groundwater from mixing with sewers. Even then, a 2017 Amnesty International report declared the aquifer overexploited and claimed 95% of the strip’s water supply was contaminated by sewage.
But since October 7, the wastewater has become unmanageable and is flowing into the streets. Water scarcity has also worsened. At least two desalination plants have closed, damaged by Israeli bombing. Israel has also cut off some water from its pipes, and many boreholes are no longer working due to a lack of fuel and electricity to pump.
Gaza, one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in a polluted and warming world, has been exposed to even more toxins, says Amali Tower, director of the nonprofit Climate Refugees.
“Tens of thousands of unfound bodies are decomposing under the rubble,” Tower said. “Thousands of explosives from current and previous wars have polluted the air and soil, including highly incendiary white phosphorus, leaving another toxic layer of chemicals in Gaza’s air and soil. »
What’s next for water security in Gaza?
Although water has been used as a tool in many conflicts, including the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Gaza case constitutes an exception, Zeitoun said, and violates several international laws, including possibly being the United Nations Genocide Convention.
The law criminalizes intentional actions inflicting living conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction, in whole or in part, of a distinct ethnic group such as the Palestinians.
“What we are seeing happening in Gaza is unacceptable,” Zeitoun said. “Keeping in mind the definition of the Genocide Convention, I believe that the salinization of the aquifer, which is the main source of water, will lead to its partial destruction. Part of it could collapse and become unusable.
Just last week, the International Court of Justice’s ruling in the historic South African genocide case against Israel ordered Tel Aviv to take all measures to prevent acts of genocide – but there are There has been little or no change in the Israeli army’s scorched earth tactics in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza are forced to drink untreated brackish water. Women take pills to delay their periods due to lack of water and sanitary napkins..
Waterborne diseases are also skyrocketing. The number of Palestinians suffering from dysentery in Gaza increased 25-fold between mid-October and December, with more than 100,000 cases recorded, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Children account for half of the cases, because toddlers are more susceptible to a disease that causes extreme dehydration and, eventually, death.