April
5, 2024
Dear
friends,
Greetings
from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
By
November 2023, it was already clear that the Israeli government had begun to
deny Palestinians in Gaza access to water. ‘Every hour that passes with Israel
preventing the provision of safe drinking water in the Gaza strip, in brazen
breach of international law, puts Gazans at risk of dying of thirst and
diseases related to the lack of safe drinking water’, said Pedro Arrojo-Agudo,
UN special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and
sanitation. ‘Israel’, he noted, ‘must stop using water as a weapon of war’.
Before Israel’s most recent attack on Gaza, 97 percent of the water in Gaza’s
only coastal aquifer was already unsafe for human consumption based on World
Health Organisation standards. Over the course of its many attacks, Israel has all
but destroyed Gaza’s water purification system and prevented the entry of
materials and chemicals needed for repair.
Faeq Hassan (Iraq), The Water Carriers, 1957.
In
early October 2023, Israeli officials indicated that they would use their
control over Gaza’s water systems as a means to perpetrate a genocide. As
Israeli Major General Ghassan Alian, the head of the Coordination of Government
Activities in the Territories (COGAT), said on 10 October, ‘Human beasts are
dealt with accordingly. Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza. No
electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell, you will get hell’. On 19
March, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Palestine Jamie McGoldrick noted that
Gaza needed ‘spare parts for water and sanitation systems’ as well as
‘chemicals to treat water’, since the ‘lack of these critical items is one of
the key drivers of the malnutrition crisis’. ‘Malnutrition crisis’ is one way
to talk about a famine.
The
assault on Gaza—whose entire population is ‘currently facing high levels of
acute food insecurity’, according to Oxfam and the Integrated Food Security
Phase Classification—has sharpened the contradictions that strike the world’s
people with force. A UN report released on World Water Day (22 March) shows
that, as of 2022, 2.2 billion people have no access to safely managed drinking
water, that four out of five people in rural areas lack basic drinking water,
and that 3.5 billion people do not have sanitation systems. As a consequence,
every day, over a thousand children under the age of five die from diseases
linked to inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene. These children are among
the 1.4 million people who die every year due to these deficiencies. The UN
report notes that, since women and girls are the primary collectors of water,
they spend more of their time finding water when water systems deteriorate due
to inadequate or non-existent infrastructure or droughts exacerbated by climate
change. This has resulted in higher dropout rates for girls in school.
Newsha Tavakolian (Iran), Untitled, 2010-11.
A
2023 study by UN Women describes the perils of the water crisis for women and
girls:
Inequalities in access to
safe drinking water and sanitation do not affect everyone equally. The greater
need for privacy during menstruation, for example, means women and girls and
other people who menstruate may access shared sanitation facilities less
frequently than people who do not, which increases the likelihood of urinary
and reproductive tract infections. Where safe and secure facilities are not
available, choices to use facilities are often limited to dawn and dusk, which
exposes at-risk groups to violence.
The
lack of access to public toilets is by itself a serious danger to women in
cities across the world, such as Dhaka, Bangladesh, where there is one public
toilet for every 200,000 people.
Access
to drinking water is being further constricted by the climate catastrophe. For
instance, a warming ocean means glacier melt, which lifts the sea levels and
allows salt water to contaminate underground aquifers more easily. Meanwhile,
with less snowfall, there is less water in reservoirs, which means less water
to drink and use for agriculture. Already, as the UN Water report shows, we are
seeing increased droughts that now impact at least 1.4 billion people directly.
According
to the United Nations, half of the world’s population experiences severe water
scarcity for at least part of the year, while one quarter faces ‘extremely
high’ levels of water stress. ‘Climate change is projected to increase the
frequency and severity of these phenomena, with acute risks for social
stability’, the UN notes. The issue of social stability is key, since droughts
have been forcing tens of millions of people into flight and starvation.
Ibrahim Hussein (Malaysia), The Game, 1964.
Climate
change is certainly a major driver of the water crisis, but so is the
rules-based international order. Capitalist governments must not be allowed to
point to an ahistorical notion of climate change as an excuse to shirk their
responsibility in creating the water crisis. For instance, over the past
several decades, governments across the world have neglected to upgrade
wastewater treatment facilities. Consequently, 42% of household wastewater is
not treated properly, which damages ecosystems and aquifers. Even more damning
is the fact that only 11% of domestic and industrial wastewater is being
reused.
Increased
investment in wastewater treatment would reduce the amount of pollution that
enters water sources and allow for better harnessing of the freshwater
available to us on the planet. There are several sensible policies that could
be adopted to immediately address the water crisis, such as those proposed by
UN Water to protect coastal mangroves and wetlands; harvest rainwater; reuse
wastewater; and protect groundwater. But these are precisely the kinds of
policies that are opposed by capitalist firms, whose profit line is improved by
the destruction of nature.
In
March 2018, we launched our second dossier, Cities Without Water. It is
worthwhile to reflect on what we showed then, six years ago:
The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change’s Technical Paper VI (IPCC, June 2008) is on climate
change and water. The scientific consensus in this document is that the changes
in weather patterns—induced by carbon-intensive capitalism—have a negative effect
on the water cycle. Areas where there will be higher rainfall might not see
more groundwater due to the velocity of the rain, which will create a rapid
movement of water to the oceans. Such high velocity rainfall neither refills
aquifers (natural water sources), nor does it allow water to be stored by
humans. The scientists also predict higher rates of drought in regions such as
the Mediterranean and Southern Africa. It is this technical report that put
forward the number that over a billion people will suffer from water scarcity.
For the past decade, the
United Nations Environmental Programme has warned about the growth of
water-intensive lifestyles and of water pollution. Both of these—lifestyles and
pollution—are consequences of the spread of capitalist social relations and capitalist
productive mechanisms across the planet. In terms of lifestyle use, the average
resident in the United States consumes between 300 and 600 litres of water per
day. This is a misleading figure. It does not mean that individuals consume
such high amounts of water. Much of this water is used by water-intensive
agriculture and by water-intensive industrial production, including energy
production. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends per person usage of
20 litres of water per day for basic hygiene and food preparation. The gap
between the two is not accidental. It is about a water-intensive lifestyle—use
of washing machines and dishwashers, washing of cars and watering of gardens,
as well as the use of water by factories and factory farms.
Water pollution is a
serious problem. In Esquel, Argentina, the people saw that the contaminants
from corporate gold mining were ruining their drinking water. ‘Water is worth
more than gold’ (El agua vale más que el oro), they said. Ruthless techniques of
extraction by mining corporations (by use of cyanide) and of cultivation by
agribusiness (by use of fertilisers and pesticides) have ruined reservoirs of
clean water. Their blue gold, say the people of Esquel, is more important than
real gold. They held a public assembly in 2003 that asserted their right to
their water against the interests of the private corporations.
It is worth pointing out
that the amount of water it would take to support 4.7 billion people at the WHO
daily minimum would be 9.5 billion litres—the exact amount used every day to
water the world’s golf courses. The water used by 60,000 villages in Thailand,
for instance, is used to water one golf course in Thailand. These are the
priorities of our current system.
In
other words, watering golf courses is more important than providing piped water
to the thousand children under the age of five who die every day due to water
deprivation. Those are the values of the capitalist system.
Warmly,
Vijay
The Gaza Genocide
|
33,091
|
75,750
|
7,000
|
|
Killed
|
Wounded
|
Missing
|
GAZA LIVE BLOG: Aid Trucks to Enter Gaza | Death Toll Rises | UN
Human Rights Coucil Calls for Arms Ban on Israel – Day 182
Following
the US ultimatum, Israel announced it will allow 350 aid trucks to enter Gaza
daily, through land crossings.
Israeli
occupation forces committed five massacres in the last 24 hours, resulting in
the killing of 54 Palestinians and the wounding of 82 more.
Australia
said it will not condone Israel’s attack on aid workers while British Foreign
Secretary David Cameron vowed to hold Israel accountable.
According
to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 33,091 Palestinians have been killed, and 75,750
wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
LATEST
UPDATES
Friday,
April 5, 6:30 pm (GMT+2)
ISRAELI
ARMY: Since the beginning of the war, 600 soldiers and officers have been
killed and 497 others have been seriously injured. Since the beginning of the
war, 3,193 officers and soldiers have been injured, including 1,552 during the
ground operation.
GALLANT:
Alertness and vigilance are not synonymous with panic and fear. “The enemy has
been subjected to strong strikes everywhere, and is looking for ways to
respond, and we are prepared.”
ISRAELI
ARMY: The Israeli army said that it was investigating the shooting from the
Jordanian side, stressing that “the perpetrator did not cross the border.”
AL-JAZEERA
(quoting informed sources): A meeting was held today on the Israeli side of the
Erez crossing between the Israeli authorities and representatives of the World
Food Program , indicating that the two sides agreed on the mechanism for
operating the crossing and bringing aid through it to the northern Gaza Strip
in the coming days.
DAVID
CAMERON: We are carefully reviewing the results of the Israeli investigation
into the killing of World Central Kitchen workers.
Friday,
April 5, 5:00 pm (GMT+2)
ISRAELI
ARMY RADIO: A gunman came from Jordanian territory and opened fire on an army
patrol without causing any casualties. The gunman carried out the shooting
without crossing the border fence and then returned to Jordanian territory.
AL-JAZEERA:
An Israeli raid targeted the town of Marjayoun in southern Lebanon.
HASSAN
NASRALLAH: The Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah,
said that the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus is a pivotal
incident that has consequences.
Friday,
April 5, 4:00 pm (GMT+2)
HEZBOLLAH:
We bombed the Hadab Yaron site with artillery shells, in addition to bombing a
gathering of Israeli occupation soldiers in both the vicinity of the Al-Manara
site and a building in the Admit settlement.
GUTERRES:
The Gaza war is devastating for civilians, health workers and UN staff.
Friday,
April 5, 3:30 pm (GMT+2)
BLINKEN:
We are reviewing the Israeli investigation into the killing of aid workers in
Gaza.
US
AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: We will not support a measure in Rafah that does not take
into account our concerns.
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: The bodies of two Palestinians were recovered from the the Al-Mughraqa
area, north of the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, following an
Israeli bombing.
AL-JAZEERA:
An Israeli raid targeted the vicinity of the town of Kafr Kila in southern
Lebanon.
Friday,
April 5, 2:15 pm (GMT+2)
BEN-GVIR:
The decision to dismiss senior army officers is an abandonment of the soldiers
in the midst of war and a grave mistake that reflects weakness.
WSJ:
The Wall Street Journal quoted an informed source as saying that President Joe
Biden asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a settlement
with Hamas regarding the return of the Palestinians to the northern Gaza Strip,
in order to continue negotiations on the exchange deal and ceasefire.
ISRAELI
ARMY: An internal Israeli army investigation showed that Israeli Efrat Katz was
killed by fire from his military helicopter in an attack last October 7, adding
that her body is being held in the Gaza Strip.
Friday,
April 5, 1:30 pm (GMT+2)
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: Injured people arrived to the European Hospital following the
occupation’s bombing of citizens in Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Yunis, south of
the Gaza Strip.
AL-JAZEERA:
Sirens sounded in several areas of the Upper Galilee on the border with
Lebanon, warning of the launch of missiles.
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: Three Palestinians were killed and a number wounded in an Israeli
bombing of a house in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
GERMAN
FM: The attack on aid workers harms the image of the Israeli army.
POLISH
FM: We submitted a note of protest to the Israeli ambassador over the killing
of a Polish aid worker in Gaza. We want Polish prosecutors to participate in
the investigation in Israel.
HEZBOLLAH:
Our forces targeted spy equipment in the Israeli Zarit barracks and achieved a
direct hit.
ISRAELI
HOME FRONT: Sirens sounded in the Kiryat Shmona settlement and its surroundings
near the border with Lebanon.
Friday,
April 5, 12:00 pm (GMT+2)
NORWEGIAN
REFUGEE COUNCIL: Gaza is one of the most dangerous areas in the world.
UN
HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICE: Attacking aid workers may amount to a war crime.
FINANCIAL
TIMES: The Biden administration plans to put special labels on settlement
goods.
AL-JAZEERA:
Injured people arrived at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah after the
bombing of a house in the northern Nuseirat camp.
CHANNEL
12: The cabinet voted to increase aid delivery to the Gaza Strip before Israeli
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir entered the session.
EHUD
OLMERT: Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for an immediate halt
to the war in Gaza and the return of the detained prisoners, indicating that
Israel’s gain would be much greater than continuing this war.
Friday,
April 5, 11:30 am (GMT+2)
POLISH
FM: The Polish Foreign Ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador to Warsaw over
the killing of an aid worker in Gaza.
PALESTINIAN
MEDIA: An Israeli raid targeted the prisoner towers west of the Nuseirat camp
in the central Gaza Strip.
UN
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL: The UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution banning
arms exports to Israel with a majority of 28 votes and 6 countries opposed. The
Council also called for Israel to be held accountable for possible war crimes
and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Friday,
April 5, 11:00 am (GMT+2)
IRANIAN
REVOLUTIONARY GUARD: Israel will not achieve security by expanding the war. The
messages we receive from Gaza indicate that the resistance is steadfast until
the enemy is buried in the Strip.
AXIOS:
The CIA director is leaving the region at the end of the week in an effort to
achieve a breakthrough in the deal for the captives detained in Gaza.
GAZA
HEALTH MINISTRY: 33,091 Palestinians have been killed, and 75,750 wounded in
Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
BLINKEN:
We look forward to achieving accountability for the killing of aid workers.
ISRAELI
PSYCHOLOGICAL SUPPORT ASSOCIATION: A 950% increase in the number of people
seeking psychological support has been recorded since the beginning of the war.
BRITISH
FOREIGN SECRETARY: David Cameron vowed to hold Israel accountable for the
bombing of World Central Kitchen workers, stressing that it must ensure that
this does not happen again.
AL-JAZEERA:
An Israeli raid targeted the vicinity of the town of Shebaa in southern
Lebanon.
Friday,
April 5, 10:00 am (GMT+2)
ISRAELI
AUTHORITIES: 350 aid trucks will enter Gaza daily, 250 of them through Kerem
Shalom and the rest through the Rafah crossing.
AUSTRALIAN
FM: We refuse to condone the attack on aid workers in Gaza, and will consider
the consequences as soon as the facts are known.
Friday,
April 5, 09:15 am (GMT+2)
LONDON:
Britain’s Public and Commercial Services Union has called on the government to
do everything in its power to stop the war in the Gaza Strip.
Friday,
April 5, 08:00 am (GMT+2)
UNRWA:
The Israeli war on Gaza has led to the displacement of more than 75% of the
population and the destruction of about 62% of homes. Critical infrastructure,
including UN buildings housing displaced families, has been attacked.
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