“Ever-worsening shortages of water and electricity. Catastrophic flooding in dense urban areas. Food insecurity exacerbated by drastic temperature increases, reduction in overall rainfall, and the long-term impact of toxic chemicals.”
This is what climate researchers Khalil Abu Yahia, Natasha Westheimer, and Mor Gilboa, writing in +972 Magazine more than two years ago, predicted was in store for Gaza’s near-term future. Israel’s ceaseless bombardment of the Strip over the past 11 months has caused unspeakable humanitarian consequences, but it will also have dramatic and lasting effects on Gaza’s already imperiled natural environment — and indeed, that of the entire region.
“It is near impossible to think about the climate crisis amongst this much death and destruction,” Westheimer wrote this past November, after Abu Yahia was killed in an Israeli airstrike. “But the reality is, this last month has set Gaza even deeper into a humanitarian crisis, and its two million residents are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than ever.” …..more
