How Israel's war is deliberately making Gaza uninhabitable
"We are living through an environmental catastrophe that will engender other catastrophes in the future. When the tanks roll onto our land, they also destroy its fertility," says Samar, a researcher and employee of the Ministry of Environment, now living in a tent in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, reports The New Arab.
As the Israeli offensive in Gaza enters its eighth month, more than 34,000 Gazans have been killed and 77,000 wounded. With more than half of the population on the brink of starvation, the destruction of Gaza's environment and food production capabilities is both an immediate concern and one with catastrophic long-term consequences, adds The New Arab.
"The greenhouse gas emissions generated during the first two months of Israel's war in Gaza were greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the world's most climate-vulnerable nations."
Gaza's Environmental Catastrophe After Israel's War
"The environment is not just collateral damage, but a target of the Israeli army," Lucia Rebolino, co-author of a study by Forensic Architecture, a collective that works with open-source satellite data, tells The New Arab. Israeli bulldozers have razed fields and orchards to clear a buffer zone more than 300 meters deep along the northern border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, she says. "The army builds dikes and mounds of earth to protect its tanks and clear the view."
The figures in her study speak for themselves: of the 170 km2 of farmland that existed in Gaza before the war - half the territory - a total of 40% has been destroyed. Two thousand agricultural buildings have also been razed in Gaza – including 90% of all greenhouses in the northern districts. By targeting agricultural fields, Israel is attacking an important part of the Gazan economy and ecosystems.
A joint study by the UN, the World Bank, and the European Union (EU) estimates the damage to agriculture at $629 million. Combined with the destruction of natural areas, waste treatment infrastructure, and debris removal, this amounts to over $1.5 billion - not even counting environmental restoration and reconstruction costs.
'In northern Gaza, two-thirds of the land was agricultural - now there's nothing left,' Samar Safiya, a Gazan environmental activist, told TNA.
Israel's military infrastructure Destroying Gaza's Agriculture
According to Rebolino, this destruction is an integral part of an asserted Israeli strategy, particularly around the border buffer zone, over the last ten years. "We regularly observed Israeli planes dropping herbicides on border agricultural areas at the beginning and end of the harvest seasons from 2014 to 2019, taking advantage of favourable winds to hit the maximum surface area," she says. Forensic Architecture has published several reports on this "herbicidal war", which has forced many farmers to leave their land.
Further south, investigators from the media group Bellingcat claim that around 1,740 hectares of land have been cleared where the Israeli army has built a new road, called Route 749. Also known as the ‘Netzarim Corridor’, this no-man's-land is being used to transport troops and to divide the north of the Gaza Strip from the south. This zone borders the Wadi Gaza, a natural reserve whose banks were cleaned up at great expense by international NGOs a few months before the war. "It was once again a region full of life and agriculture, with good infrastructure," sighs Samar Safiya in a voice note. "Now it's all destroyed, and Palestinians are forbidden to enter - it's very dangerous.”
"Israeli bombardments in Gaza have created 37 million tons of debris, more than the whole of the Ukraine war over two years"
Water, Air, & Soil Pollution
From the sky to the sea, from the earth to the groundwater, Gaza has been contaminated for many years, even generations, experts say. The greenhouse gas emissions generated during the first two months of the war in Gaza were greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the world's most climate-vulnerable nations, according to a British-American study. It estimates that the climate cost of the first 60 days of Israel's war is equivalent to burning at least 150,000 tons of coal.
The UN further stated that Israeli bombardments have created 37 million tons of debris. "That's more than the whole of Ukraine in two years," points out Wim Zwijnenburg, a researcher on the effects of conflict on the environment at PAX, a Dutch organisation that has documented, and denounced, how Israel’s war is making Gaza uninhabitable.
The dangers are manifold. Contamination by asbestos and heavy metals, dust and fine particles, toxic waste from hospitals and industries, and diseases spread by decomposing bodies. "How are we going to dispose of all this debris, when there's no waste infrastructure left standing?" asked Zwijnenburg. Some 70,000 tons of solid waste are said to have accumulated
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