EURONEWS (17/4/2023)
Muzaraq “Abu Salman” Arash remembers a time when fish swam in Gaza’s wetlands and thousands of migrating birds soared above him every spring and autumn.
Water used to stream down the Hebron hills in the West Bank and wind through the Naqab desert, filling the coastal wetlands of central Gaza before reaching the Mediterranean Sea.
“There were a lot of animals, a lot of plants. The water was so clean we used to drink it,” says Abu Salman, who has lived in Wadi Gaza his entire life. He doesn’t know how old he is, but estimates he is about 60.
Over the decades, Abu Salman witnessed a serious deterioration of Gaza’s once vibrant wetlands, an important stopover point for birds migrating between Africa, Europe and Asia.
In the 70s, upstream water diversion by Israel decreased the flow of rainwater reaching Wadi Gaza. Then local municipalities started dumping raw sewage, solid waste and debris into the valley, turning what remained of the wetlands into wastelands.
In 2000 the site was declared a nature reserve by the Palestinian Authority, in an attempt to halt the deterioration of its natural resources and biodiversity (…)