Climate change is a human rights issue. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), where land and natural resources required for climate adaptation are controlled by Israel, and systematically denied to Palestinians. Of all these resources, none are more vital than water.
Since 1967 Israel has issued military orders asserting its control over all water sources in the occupied territories, depriving Palestinians access to their own water. What does this water deficit look like on the ground? Nancy Murray explains how Palestinian farms cope without access to irrigated or piped water.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports on water & sanitation crisis in Gaza, increase in Israeli settler violence. “97 per cent of ground water extracted in Gaza is unfit for human consumption, generating the risk of a waterborne disease outbreak.”
Boston-area Palestinian rights activist Nancy Murray recently wrote Boston Globe reporter Erin Ailworth about her…