Israel and Palestine

For many generations, Palestinians had been dependent on their natural resources; they lived and worked in harmony with their natural environment, maintaining a variety of crops and indigenous landscapes made up their identity and culture. However, in the early 20th century came the birth of major nationalist movements among the Jews and Arabs which resulted in the establishment of Israel in 1948. Israel took 247,000 acres of Palestinian land and more than 3/4 of its people were expelled from their homes.

Since the establishment of Israel and up until now they have been damaging and destroying Palestine in aim to get all of its land under their control. Israel’s devastating attack on 2014 in Gaza killed thousands of Palestinians and destroyed Gaza’s power generating company called the “power plant”, in which 520,000 gallons of diesel fuel were on fire. This attack severely polluted the air, displaced thousands of people and the destruction of civilian infrastructure caused long term consequences and violence. Israel stole nearly 80% of Palestinian water sources leaving only 20% for Palestine. Over-extraction of Palestinian water sources by Israel has caused severe distortion in the water flow leading to extreme weather events and damage to agriculture and residential areas. In addition to this, in August 2021 Israel army uprooted and destroyed over 9,000 palestinian olive trees as a way to expand illegal settlements and to drive Palestinians out of their land. This led to many environmental problems like desertification, soil erosion, land degradation, etc.

The conflicts between Israel and Palestine have caused a negative impact on their environment. Israel promotes itself as an eco-friendly country to detract attention from its human rights violation and destruction of Palestine. Israel’s violent oppressions and damage to the natural environment are called war crimes. Due to Israel’s oppression, Palestinians are at high risk for climate hazards.

Sources

Information from: imeu.org, reliefweb.int, apnews.com, aa.com, and sites.evergreen.edu

Written by Yakshitha Niranjan