Israel is planning to flood the Hamas tunnel network in Gaza with seawater risks “ruining the basic conditions for life in Gaza”, a senior hydrologist said as other experts warned this could cause an ecological catastrophe that will leave Gaza with no drinkable water. It was reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have set up pumps at Al-Shati refugee camp which they could use to pump millions of gallons of seawater into the tunnels.
Israel has also begun the trials in the area which experts think could have far-reaching environmental consequences. Mark Zeitoun, director of the Geneva Water Hub and professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute, said as per Guardian that the seawater pumped into the soil of Gaza would inevitably seep into the aquifer that its 2.3 million residents rely on for drinking water.
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Mark Zeitoun said, “If you add more seawater directly, right on through the sand into the aquifer, it’s not going to turn a top-quality resource into a vulnerable resource, it will turn a vulnerable resource into a catastrophic one."
“It would ruin the conditions of life of everyone in Gaza,” he said, adding, “I say the conditions of life because I think that’s one of the elements of genocide within the UN convention, the partial or complete physical destruction of the conditions necessary for life of any people.
{{/usCountry}}“It would ruin the conditions of life of everyone in Gaza,” he said, adding, “I say the conditions of life because I think that’s one of the elements of genocide within the UN convention, the partial or complete physical destruction of the conditions necessary for life of any people.
{{/usCountry}}“Flooding the freshwater aquifer with seawater would go against every norm humanity has ever developed, including the environment aspects of international humanitarian law/rules of war and the recent principles on the protection of environment in relation to armed conflict and all the progress made towards criminalising harm to the natural environment: ecocide," he explained.
A spokesperson for the UN Environment Programme said, “The coastal aquifer, an underground natural reservoir which runs from the Carmel mountain range in the north to the Sinai peninsula in the south, and the already fragile ecosystem of Gaza must be protected, so there is no impact on agriculture, industry and the environment, and so that people can use the groundwater safely."