Jakarta –
Plan Israel flooding Hamas fighters’ tunnel network with seawater risks damaging basic living conditions in Gaza. According to hydrology experts, this could be one of the elements of the crime of genocide.
Quoted detikINET from the Guardian, environmental experts have warned the strategy risks causing an ecological disaster that would leave Gaza without enough drinking water and destroy agriculture.
The UN’s water rights officer, Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, compared it to the legend of the Romans salting the fields of Carthage to make their rivals’ territory uninhabitable. Human rights and environment rapporteur David Boyd said damage to Gaza’s only water supply would be a major disaster for the environment and human rights.
Media reports, photos and satellite imagery show the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) installing a system to pump millions of gallons of seawater into tunnels in Gaza. Israel reportedly began testing seawater pumping into underground networks last week.
The environmental impact can be very broad. According to a study by the US military academy West Point, there were 1,300 tunnels spanning 500 km in Gaza at the start of the war in October. It is estimated that it would take 1.5 million cubic meters of water to completely flood it.
Mark Zeitoun, director of the Geneva Water Hub, said seawater pumped into tunnels across Gaza’s sandy, porous soil would inevitably seep into the aquifer, the water reserve of its 2.3 million residents. The aquifer is highly contaminated by waste and seawater infiltration caused by excessive extraction.
“If you add more seawater directly, it won’t turn a high-quality resource into a vulnerable resource, it will turn a vulnerable resource into a disaster resource,” Zeitoun said.
“This will destroy the living conditions of everyone in Gaza. I say living conditions because in my opinion it is one of the elements of genocide in the UN convention, the partial or complete physical destruction of the conditions necessary for the life of a nation,” he said.
“Flooding freshwater aquifers with seawater is contrary to the norms that humanity has developed, including environmental aspects in international humanitarian law/rules of war and recent principles regarding environmental protection in relation to armed conflict,” he added.
Wim Zwijnenburg, a researcher at Pax for Peace, which investigates the impact of war on the environment, warned of additional dangers. “We don’t know what is hidden in the tunnel,” he said.
According to him, there are reports circulating that around 20,000 gallons of fuel are stored in the tunnel. it has the potential to affect the soil and enter aquifers and groundwater.
Flooding the tunnels would also pose a risk to the land integrity of Gaza, the world’s most densely populated territory. If a tunnel collapses beneath a built-up area, it can also cause the buildings above it to collapse as well.
Watch the video ‘Israel Launches Massive Attack on Christmas Eve, 100 People Killed’:
(fyk/fyk)
2023-12-25 23:10:58
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