Compared to the Carthage plan! UN warning on Hamas tunnels: 'Risks destroying life in Gaza'

According to a report compiled by T24, Agudo, speaking to the Guardian, compared the Israeli plan to the legend of the Romans salting the fields of Carthage. 

David Boyd, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, stated that damaging Gaza's only water source would be a "catastrophe" in terms of environment and human rights.

"1.5 MILLION CUBIC METERS OF WATER WILL BE NEEDED"

According to a study conducted by the US military academy West Point, there are 1,300 tunnels stretching for 500 kilometers in Gaza. It is estimated that 1.5 million cubic meters of water would be needed to fill these tunnels in accordance with Israel's plan. 

Mark Zeitoun, director of the Geneva Water Hub and a professor at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, said that seawater pumped into hundreds of kilometers of tunnels running through Gaza's porous, sandy soil would inevitably seep into the aquifer that meets about 85 percent of the water needs of its 2.3 million residents.

"ECOCIDE"

Zeitoun, who has worked as a water engineer for the UN in Palestinian territories, explained that the aquifer is already contaminated due to wastewater and seawater intrusion caused by years of over-extraction.

"This would destroy the living conditions for everyone in Gaza," said Zeitoun. "I say living conditions because I think this is one of the elements of genocide in the UN convention; the physical destruction of the conditions necessary for a people to live, in whole or in part," he stated. 

Describing the Israeli plan as "ecocide," Zeitoun said, "Flooding the freshwater aquifer with seawater would be contrary to every norm humanity has developed to date, including the environmental dimensions of international humanitarian law/rules of war, the latest principles regarding the protection of the environment in relation to armed conflict, and all progress made toward criminalizing damage to the natural environment."

THEY ATTACKED WATER SOURCES

In the West Bank, Palestinians have no access to drinking water and are forced to buy water from Israelis. Between January 2022 and mid-2023, Israeli settlers and soldiers attacked water sources in the West Bank approximately three times a month. In Gaza, the groundwater aquifer is not recharging enough to meet demand due to the growing population and climate impacts such as drought and high temperatures. 

News Source: 12punto