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A new report "highlights the devastation that war and violence wreak on civilian populations and essential water infrastructure," said one researcher.
A think tank that tracks water conflicts across the globe reported on Thursday that in 2023, a 50% year-over-year rise in water-related violence was recorded, with Israeli attacks on Palestinian water supplies being a major driver of the surge.
Attacks by Israeli settlers and the Israel Defense Forces on water supplies in the West Bank and Gaza accounted for a quarter of all water-related conflicts last year, reported the Pacific Institute, as the IDF began a full-scale assault and blockade on Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October.
Rights groups have warned for nearly 11 months that Israel's near-total blockade on humanitarian aid and attacks on civil infrastructure were leaving Gaza's 2.3 million people without adequate safe drinking water, causing diseases to spread and intensifying the starvation crisis in the enclave.
The Pacific Institute's annual Water Conflict Chronology quantified those attacks, finding that Israeli settlers and armed forces had contaminated and destroyed water wells and irrigation systems on 90 occasions in 2023.
Cases of water-related violence in Palestine last year included the destruction of 800 meters of water pipelines in the town of Al Awja in the West Bank, cutting off the water supply to agricultural lands; airstrikes on solar panels that provided energy to the Gaza Central Wastewater Treatment Plant, which served 1 million people across 11 communities; and the bombing of at least one desalination plant owned by the Eta Water Company in Gaza.
As in previous years, much of the water-related violence in the West Bank was driven by Israel's illegal annexation of land for settlements, which the International Court of Justice last month ruled violates international law.
"The significant upswing in violence over water resources reflects continuing disputes over control and access to scarce water resources, the importance of water for modern society, growing pressures on water due to population growth and extreme climate change, and ongoing attacks on water systems where war and violence are widespread, especially in the Middle East and Ukraine," said Peter Gleick, senior fellow and co-founder of the Pacific Institute.
With the IDF and Israeli settlers attacking water supplies in Palestine, particularly in the last three months of 2023, water conflicts in the Middle East accounted for 38% of all water-related violence across the globe last year.
"When enforced, international laws of war that protect civilian infrastructure like dams, pipelines, and water-treatment plants can provide essential protections that uphold the basic human right to water."
Gleick said the water conflicts recorded by the Pacific Institute highlight not only "the failure to enforce and respect international law," but also "the failure to provide safe water and sanitation for all and the growing threat of climate change and severe drought."
Latin America and the Caribbean also saw a surge in water conflicts last year, with 48 violent incidents reported compared with 13 in 2022.
The conflicts across the region included clashes between state police and more than 300 residents in Veracruz, Mexico, when the residents were blocking a highway to demand water; an incident in which an armed group opened fire on a convoy of vehicles belonging to the National Directorate of Drinking Water and Sanitation in Ouest, Haiti; and clashes between police and demonstrators in Puebla, Mexico at a protest over the construction of a new water treatment plant, which opponents said would harm local aquifers.
The Pacific Institute said that with drought and the climate crisis contributing to tensions over unequal access to water, "policies can be enacted to more equitably distribute and share water among stakeholders and technology can help to more efficiently use what water is available."
"When enforced, international laws of war that protect civilian infrastructure like dams, pipelines, and water-treatment plants can provide essential protections that uphold the basic human right to water," said the group.
Severe drought in Afghanistan led two families to clash over water distribution in Mahmood Raqi, leaving six people wounded, and drought conditions drove a 15% increase in disputes over access to water for farmland in India last year.
Protests erupted over government decisions to release water from the Cauvery River, with police using force against demonstrators. The Pacific Institute recorded 25 clashes between communities in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka over water resources for irrigation from the river.
The group said the intensifying climate crisis has led to a rapid rise in water-related violence in recent years.
Just 20 water conflicts were documented by the Pacific Institute in 2020, but both of the last two years in particular have shown sharp upticks over the previous years.
The number of water conflicts per year since 2000. (Source: Pacific Institute)
"The large increase in these events signals that too little is being done to ensure equitable access to safe and sufficient water and highlights the devastation that war and violence wreak on civilian populations and essential water infrastructure," said Morgan Shimabuku, senior researcher for the Pacific Institute. "The newly updated data and analysis exposes the increasing risk that climate change adds to already fragile political situations by making access to clean water less reliable in areas of conflict around the world."
"This is both about the Kolkata doctor who was brutalized and every woman who has faced sexual violence or harassment in the country," said one protester.
Indian doctors and healthcare workers on Saturday ramped up a nationwide strike in response to the rape and murder of a trainee physician in a state-run hospital in Kolkata, shutting down all hospital services except for emergency care in a bid to force action to protect women from sexual assault.
The August 9th murder of the 31-year-old doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata sparked massive demonstrations that began Monday and continued throughout the week. On Wednesday, protesters at a "Reclaim the Night" march attacked the hospital where the woman was killed. Protests also took place in cities including Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Pune.
Saturday's strike, which was organized by the Indian Medical Association, is set to last for 24 hours, during which all treatment in government hospitals and outpatient clinics has been canceled. The IMA
condemned the "crime of barbaric scale and the lack of safe spaces for women" in the world's most populous nation.
"This is both about the Kolkata doctor who was brutalized and every woman who has faced sexual violence or harassment in the country," one Kolkata protester told The Guardian. Other demonstrators in the West Bengal capital shouted slogans including, "We want justice," "Enough is enough," and "Hands that heal shouldn't bleed."
"We don't feel safe,” Antara Das, a medical student who joined the Kolkata protest, told Al Jazeera. "If this happened inside a hospital that is second home to us, where are we safe now?"
Indian physicians called for the implementation of the Central Protection Act, a proposed law meant to shield healthcare workers from violence.
"We just want to be safe while we are doing our duty," Sapna Rani, a 27-year-old female doctor in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera.
One man has been arrested in connection with the doctor's rape and murder. According to the Indian Express, the suspect's wife filed multiple complaints with police accusing him of assault, including while she was pregnant. The suspect is reportedly a "civic volunteer" who worked closely with police.
In stark contrast to the nationwide protests, local police and the principal at the victim's medical college, Dr. Sandip Ghosh, claimed the murdered doctor, who was sleeping in the hospital's seminar hall when she was attacked, killed herself.
Ghosh then claimed that the victim—who was found bleeding from her eyes, mouth, and genitals, and who had extensive traumatic injuries to her body—was still to blame for her own death.
"It was irresponsible of the girl to go to the seminar hall alone at night," he said, according to The Wire.
Ghosh was interrogated Saturday by India's Central Bureau of Investigation. Earlier in the week, he tendered his resignation from R.G. Kar. Instead of accepting his resignation, the government transferred him to serve as principal of Calcutta National Medical College, where students staged a protest against the move.
India Today reported Saturday that the West Bengal government has canceled Ghosh's transfer.
"It is our responsibility to show that as people of India, we refuse to be complicit in that, even if our government wishes to continue with what it does."
Acclaimed Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy this week joined prominent jurists, diplomats, artists, and others in urging their government to stop selling weapons to Israel, which they called "abominable" and "a serious violation of India's obligations under international law and our Constitution."
Speaking Thursday at an event organized by the Press Club of India, Roy—winner of the 1997 Booker Prize for her debut novel The God of Small Things—said that Indians must "at least show that we do not support that murder in Gaza, we do not support our government's support of that."
"What is happening in Gaza, it is not just the murder… of tens of thousands of women and children," she continued. "It is the bombing of hospitals, the destruction of universities… the attempt to erase the very memory people have of that place. It is a genocide like no other because it's taking place on live TV."
"The Indian government is complicit in the genocide that Israel is conducting in Gaza."
"India used to be a country that supported the people of Palestine in their struggle for freedom," Roy noted. "Everywhere, even in the United States… people are standing up against their government's support for [Israel]. But we are not standing up… and that is such a shame."
"We must stand up. We must refuse," she asserted. "We will not support the export of weapons of any kind."
"The Indian government is complicit in the genocide that Israel is conducting in Gaza," Roy added. "It is our responsibility to show that as people of India, we refuse to be complicit in that, even if our government wishes to continue with what it does. We want these weapons exports to stop immediately."
Roy is one of more than two dozen former Indian Supreme Court justices and other judges, foreign service officers, academics, artists, activists, and others who on Wednesday sent a letter to Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh urging him to halt the licensing of arms sales to Israel, whose military forces have killed or wounded more than 140,000 Palestinians while obliterating and starving Gaza.
"The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has clearly ruled that Israel is in violation of obligations under the Genocide Convention and further that Israel is in illegal occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory," the letter states. "In light of these rulings, any supply of military material to Israel would amount to a violation of India's obligations under international humanitarian law and the mandate of Article 21 read with Article 51(c) of the Constitution of India."
Among the weapons India has sent to Israel are Hermes 900 unmanned aerial drones, which are co-manufactured with Israeli arms company Elbit Systems. The letter notes that the drones "have been extensively used in the Israeli Defense Forces' military campaign in Gaza."
"Several [United Nations] experts have warned that the transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws, and risk state complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide, reiterating their demand to stop transfers immediately," the letter's signer wrote.
"In short, the grant of licenses and approvals for export of military material to Israel, coupled with reports of such exports by Indian companies, constitutes a serious violation of India's obligations under international law and our own Constitution," the letter stresses.
"International law aside, we consider such exports to be morally objectionable, indeed abominable," the signatories added. "We demand, therefore, that India should immediately suspend its collaboration in the delivery of military material to Israel. Further, India must immediately make every effort to ensure that weapons already delivered to Israel are not used to contribute to acts of genocide or violations of international humanitarian law."
The letter came ahead of planned nationwide protests by Indian leftists on Saturday calling for an end to arms sales and "all forms of complicity with Israel's illegal occupation and genocide."
India—which in 1971 invaded Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in large part to end a U.S.-backed Pakistani genocide mostly targeting Bengalis—voted in favor of the December U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate Gaza cease-fire.
However, the administration of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many lawmakers from his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party have expressed steadfast support for Israel and its Gaza onslaught. Critics have noted that both Israel and India are occupying Muslims, the former in Palestine and the latter in Jammu and Kashmir.
In an interview with Middle East Eye published Friday, Roy—who faces prosecution in India over comments she allegedly made nearly 15 years ago regarding Kashmir—said that India could "forever be linked to genocide" if it does not change course.
"India needs to stop the export of weapons to Israel and ensure the return of Indian workers who have been sent to Israel to replace Palestinian workers," she said.
"If it does not do so at once, it is in violation of the orders of the ICJ," she added. "It will forever be complicit in aiding and abetting a genocide that is being telecast live for the world to watch."