A young Palestinian walks through a debris-strewn field in Gaza where attacks have damaged much of the civilian infrastructure. (来源:联合国环境规划署)
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, 机构或定居者受损, 摧毁了, 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.
“毁灭的循环, rebuilding and destruction again has resulted in significant degradation of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and economy,” 珍妮苗圃，副教授 政治科学 在中 文理学院. “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,播种者解释道, 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. “它包括一系列实践, 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. 集体, such actions have contributed to the fragmentation of the Palestinian population into a series of isolated, donor-dependent飞地.”
在加沙地带, 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. 到2014年，只有10个.5 percent of Gaza’s population had access to safe drinking water through the public system, 与98相比.2000年为3%.
“这么久了, 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,埃里卡·温塔尔说, Lee Hill Snowdon Professor of Environmental Policy at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.
“我们的研究, 它综合了数百份政府文件的发现, 联合国报告, 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, 污水管道, 渔船和橄榄树, 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,温塔尔说.
有趣的是, 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在期刊上 国际事务中.
来进行分析, 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.”
