A young Palestinian walks through a debris-strewn field in Gaza where attacks have damaged much of the civilian infrastructure. (Credit: UNEP)
以色列的目标是农业, water and energy infrastructures in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has had dire impacts on human welfare and livelihoods in both locations, a new report by researchers at University of New Hampshire and Duke University shows.
The report is based on an original database that includes 982 incidents between 2006 and 2017 in which Israeli forces, agencies or settlers damaged, destroyed, 禁止或限制进入提供食物的地点和建筑物, 向巴勒斯坦人提供清洁水和其他基本服务.
“The cycle of destruction, rebuilding and destruction again has resulted in significant degradation of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and economy,” said Jeannie Sowers, associate professor of political science at UNH’s College of Liberal Arts. “Combined with border blockades and increased delays or denials for construction permits, it’s become difficult to secure international aid and investments or import the materials needed to rebuild.”
系统地使用法律限制, permit denials and other indirect forms of oppression is an example of “slow violence,” Sowers explained, referring to a term Princeton University scholar Rob Nixon coined in 2011 to describe environmental damage that unfolds gradually and largely out of sight of the public.
“Slow violence has been especially widely used in the West Bank,” Sowers said. “It includes a range of practices, from the theft of electrical generators to the denial of construction permits to build water systems for Palestinian villages, 以及拒绝将它们连接到现有系统. Collectively, such actions have contributed to the fragmentation of the Palestinian population into a series of isolated, donor-dependent enclaves.”
In Gaza, repeated strikes on water and sewage infrastructure have damaged 60 percent of the area’s treatment plants, 27 percent of its pumping stations and more than 20 miles of water or wastewater lines, 根据联合国人权理事会2014年的一项分析. By 2014, only 10.5 percent of Gaza’s population had access to safe drinking water through the public system, compared to 98.3 percent in 2000.
“For so long, the international community has largely focused on the direct targeting of civilians in war and has overlooked the way in which governments target infrastructure during war and occupations that can persist for decades,” said Erika Weinthal, Lee Hill Snowdon Professor of Environmental Policy at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.
“Our research, 它综合了数百份政府文件的发现, UN reports, 先前的研究和其他可证实的来源, 当你瞄准像水箱这样的物体时, sewer lines, fishing boats and olive trees, 你也间接地瞄准了依赖它们的人类. 这具有深远的长期影响, not only for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza but for peace and security across the region,” Weinthal said.
Interestingly, of the 685 West Bank incidents that Weinthal and Sowers document in their report’s database, 大约75%的袭击目标是农业用地和建筑. The majority of these incidents were carried out by Jewish settlers and involved the destruction of olive and fruit trees.
Weinthal和Sowers在2月8日发表了他们的分析. 11 in the journal International Affairs.
To conduct their analysis, 他们查阅了联合国机构汇编的12年来的记录, public utilities and human rights groups; reviewed hundreds of news reports and government documents; and conducted 28 interviews with government officials in Israel and representatives of nongovernmental organizations and aid programs active in the region.
Their data on Gaza and the West Bank comes from a larger database they have compiled that documents incidents of infrastructure targeting across the Middle East and North Africa.
“What is happening in Gaza and the West Bank is not an isolated problem,” Weinthal emphasized. “Our database shows this type of violence is occurring increasingly in conflict zones throughout the region.”
