The Pacific lnstitute Water Conflict Chronology Update (August 2024)
Excerpts from Fact Sheet: Water Conflict Chronology Update, August 22, 2024
https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Water-Conflict-Chronology_Fact-Sheet.pdf
The Pacific Institute added 347 new instances of armed conflicts associated with water resource and water systems in 2023. … The total number of eveners per years has been increasing rapidly in recent years….
Subnational (intrastate) conflicts between farmers and pastoralists in Africa, urban and rural water users, religious groups, and family clans in 2023 (62% of the events) continue to far outnumber interstate events where two or more nations were involved (38% of the events).
Areas of Special regional concern in 2023 include:
- A major jump in violence over water between Israel and Palestine, especially with widespread attacks by Israel on water systems in the West Bank and Gaza.
- A large increase in events in India and Latin America associated with drought and spites over control and access to water; and
- Continued expansion of violence over access to water and land between clans, pastoralists, farmers, and herders I Sub-Saharan Africa
- A slight decrease in the large number of attacks on water systems in the Russian-Ukrainian war were reported in 2023 versus 2022, but the number remains high (32 reported events compared to 43 in 2022).
[From the section on “Middle East/Western Asia”]”
- Widespread and repeated attacks are reported throughout 2023 on West Bank Palestinian water systems, irrigation, and agricultural land by Israeli settlers and military. These attacks expand after the October attack on Israel by Hamas.
- On October 9, 2023, Israel threatens a complete cutoff of water to Gaza. Israel Defense Minister Yoav Galland says that “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would be allowed into Gaza. By mid-October, Gaza’s last remaining seawater desalination plant shuts down due to lack of fuel as do all of Gaza’s wastewater treatment plants. Water supply from Israel to Southern Gaza coms to a halt on 30 October and for some time no water is provided to Gaza from Israel.
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Israel responsible for quarter of all water-related violence in 2023: Tracker – Arab News
Short Url. https://arab.news/zhms4
LONDON: Israeli attacks on Palestinian water supplies accounted for a quarter of all water-related violence in 2023, according to the Water Conflict Chronology tracker.
Throughout the year, settlers — often sanctioned by or operating in tandem with the Israel Defense Forces — regularly carried out targeted attacks on water infrastructure across the occupied West Bank.
This included the contamination or destruction of wells, pumps and irrigation systems in more than 90 instances last year, the tracker found by monitoring news and UN reports as well as eyewitness accounts.
Last September, settlers from Shaarei Tikva used wastewater to poison Palestinian olive groves and crops east of Qalqilya, The Guardian reported.
An attack in November saw settlers demolish homes as well as a school’s water tanks and pipeline, in an attempt to make the area unlivable for Palestinian families.
As well as settler attacks, Israel’s invasion of Gaza has led to the destruction of most of the enclave’s water infrastructure.
Israel also struck energy sites that supplied a key wastewater treatment plant that served 1 million people in Gaza.
Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, an independent research and policy organization that created the conflict tracker in 1985, said: “There was a massive uptick in violence over water in 2023, widely around the world, but especially in the Middle East.”