Israel opens rainwater stores, floods Gaza farmland

Palestinians repair greenhouses following heavy rainfall in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on 27 January 2016. [Yasser Qudih – Apaimages]

Israel yesterday opened one of the gates of its rainwater stores east of Gaza, allowing rainwater to flood large swathes of Palestinian land, Ma’an reported.

The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement that the water drowned “hundreds of dunams of agricultural lands and damaged barley and wheat crops.”

According to the statement, the water storage area was located in the east of Shuja’iyya neighbourhood in the east of Gaza city.

Israel builds a number of reservoirs to stop rainwater from running through the Gaza valleys in winter. These prevent Palestinians in the enclave from storing rainwater to irrigate their crops and to fill underground wells.

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