Photo by Osama Silwadi / Apollo Images

Photo by the NGO Action Against Hunger

Photo by Osama Silwadi / Apollo Images

Photo by the NGO Action Against Hunger

Historic Palestine is a relatively small area of land that is today shared by Israelis and Palestinians. Although the outcome of the permanent status negotiations on the future borders between Palestinians and Israelis will divide the territory along the 1967 borders, it is clear that the two populations will continue to live in close proximity that will require them to share the land and its limited resources in an environmentally conscious way.

Under such circumstances, the two states and their respective populations should pay close attention to environmental protection concerns. Though certain trans-boundary impacts (i.e., effects across international borders) are obvious, others are much more subtle but nevertheless need to be considered in detail by the parties. Thus, for example, the parties share the bulk of their water resources, and there is a risk that the upstream state will contaminate freshwater supplies available to the downstream party. In the context of Palestine and Israel, this dynamic is especially interesting, as Palestine is in an upstream position in four of the six shared watercourses (the three West Bank aquifers and Wadi Gaza), whereas Israel is upstream in the other two instances (the Jordan River and the Gaza Aquifer). The parties should collaborate in ensuring that the vital shared freshwaters are stringently protected, and this should arguably extend to some form of joint management of the shared water resources.

A similar scenario exists in relation to air quality, as the close juxtaposition of the populations means that they share the same airsheds. Atmospheric pollution arising from Israeli or Palestinian territory is highly likely to affect the other, and trans-boundary impacts of this type require close attention and control, with the parties collaborating with each other in order to minimize any impacts on either population.

Other issues such as solid-waste disposal are more likely to be addressed by the two states separately, but the trans-boundary movement of waste materials (especially hazardous wastes) requires close attention. Israel is a signatory to the Basel Convention, which addresses this issue.

Less obvious concerns involve such matters as the use of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals in Palestine and Israel. These can adversely affect water supplies, and Israel still uses a wide range of highly toxic pesticides. Palestine has recently restricted the use of agricultural chemicals to a much less toxic and hazardous group of formulations, and there would be merit in Israel’s following this lead. The use of Genetically Modified Organisms should also be addressed collaboratively.

A detailed environmental protocol has been drafted by advisers to the PLO, and this may be used to ensure that environmental concerns are addressed adequately in the future.

In retrospect, and in parallel to the increased awareness of the global environment during the last forty years, the Palestinian people have continued to suffer the tragic impacts of various Israeli occupation policies on their natural environment in the occupied Palestinian territory. Of course, harm to our environment causes harm to our health.

Whether by increased dumping in the West Bank of waste generated in Israel, or by obstructing the import of necessary materials to maintain or construct wastewater treatment plants in the Gaza Strip, Israeli occupation policies have contributed to the damage caused to Palestinian natural resources. Among the most recent is the September 2007 Israeli cabinet decision to disrupt fuel and electricity to the Gaza Strip.

With 1.5 million people living in a concentrated area of 365 square kilometres, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated areas on earth. The major source of freshwater available to the large Palestinian population living in the Gaza Strip is from groundwater pumped from the underlying coastal aquifer. However, the local demand for water far exceeds available supply with the result that Gazans currently utilize more than twice the safe sustainable limit of available water from the aquifer. In turn, the water drawn from wells then becomes a mixture of available groundwater with seawater and wastewaters, which both flow into the over-pumped aquifer.

Already suffering from insufficient supply and inadequate quality of water, the entire water cycle in the Gaza Strip will be dramatically impacted by the Israeli disruption of fuel and electricity. Electricity and fuel is utilized as a source of power throughout the water system. First, it is used to pump the water from the ground. Next, it runs the filtration equipment purifying water for consumption. It powers the pumps to facilitate distribution of the water to the end user (e.g., the water system relies on vast numbers of pumps to increase the pressure in order to ensure that water reaches inhabitants in high-rise buildings). More importantly, it runs the facilities that treat the wastewater generated by the population, rendering it benign to the natural environment, especially the aquifer as the source of water.

The disruption of electricity and fuel shall decrease or halt the treatment facilities resulting in millions of cubic meters of wastewater that will go untreated. The wastewater is likely to seep back into the aquifer, contributing to the contamination of the groundwater and exacerbating the existing water crisis. In addition, if pumps are inoperable from lack of fuel, then the sewage system will flood into the streets, increasing the likelihood of the transmission of waterborne diseases to the inhabitants. Combined with the inability to use pumps to reduce the accumulated pressure of overcapacity wastewater lagoons at treatment facilities, there is a high risk of further breaches similar to the tragedy at Beit Lahia where, on March 27, 2007, the sewage-lake barriers failed, resulting in the flooding of the Bedouin village of Umm al-Nasser and the death of six people. Thus, electricity and fuel provides Gazans with access to water, including both supply and distribution, allows the safeguard of water and environment through treatment that prevents contamination, as well as enables the protection of the public from water-related diseases and catastrophic events.

It is the hope of a comprehensive peace agreement that the external controls by Israel, which exhibit a callous disregard for both the Palestinian and Israeli environment, will cease, thus allowing for the improvement of Palestinian institutions and infrastructure to preserve our shared natural environment and safeguard human health.