The Israeli occupation's impact on the Palestinian environmentMore than 60 years of Israeli occupation have devastated the soil and water of Palestine, once described as "the land of milk and honey."
Norwegian medics claimed that some of those wounded by Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip during 'Operation Cast Lead' had traces of depleted uranium in their bodies. |
In Gaza high levels of toxic metals have been found because of repeated shelling and airstrikes; these include mercury, tungsten, molybdenum, cadmium and cobalt. All said to cause tumours, birth defects and affect fertility.
In the West Bank the Israeli military regularly uproot olive trees and illegal settlers uproot and set fire to olive and other fruit trees. In Gaza, during Israel's offensive December 2008/January 2009, nearly 400,000 productive trees were destroyed. (Al Haq analysis)
Thousands of acres of the most fertile land, has been commandeered for illegal Israeli settlements, turned into restricted buffer zones, or used as closed military zones, training grounds, firing ranges, fuel depots. Palestinians find themselves separated from their land by the illegal wall.
Israel settlers pour sewage on a Palestinian school in Qalqiliya. |
The land left for Palestinians to farm is less fertile and may very well be tainted with traces of heavy metals and chemical contamination from spent shells and mortars.
In the West Bank raw sewage from illegal Israeli settlements has been dumped into rivers that provide drinking water. Springs and wells have been walled off from Palestinian communities for use by illegal settlements, or destroyed.
In some areas the Jordan river is running dry because of the demand for water from illegal Israeli settlements and the Dead Sea has lost a third of its surface area in the last 20 years and is heavily polluted with raw sewage.
A Palestinian woman walks next to sewage water flowing from Israeli settlements in the West Bank village of Kafr Thulth, near Qalqilya, |
Home demolitions ordered by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank release embodied carbon and cause pollution with uncontrolled dust and contaminants, leaving families homeless and traumatised.
Along the Gaza border, crops are sprayed with herbicide by Israeli planes, killing crops, contaminating soil, causing air pollution and the herbicides to enter the water table.
Israeli rainwater dams have been opened and allowed to flood acres of farmland in Gaza at harvest time, destroying crops and degrading farmland.
