Losses are huge in the Gaza Strip with many of the devastated population still in tears, some little kids afraid to return to school today.
The environmental effects will continue to be uncovered for years on lands that become less fertile with each invasion and home demolition.The Agriculture Minister in the Gaza Strip noted today that the Israeli military continues to target farmers on their lands near the boundary lines. Many people are unable to reach the fields. He added on Saturday that in the Mediterranean just off the Gaza coast Israeli naval ships continue to open fire on fishermen, preventing them from working.
Financially speaking it is clear that reconstruction costs in the Strip are around two billion. The Ministry of Agriculture says that another 170 million USD is needed for that sector alone.
Agriculture Minister Mohammad Al Agha told a press conference in Gaza City today that nearly a thousand water wells were destroyed along with 60 percent of the Strips total agricultural land. Included in the 170 million figure needed is the cost for reconstruction to the fishing industry in the Mediterranean Sea.
Massive destruction [was] caused in the agricultural and fishing sector of the Gaza Strip through bulldozing thousands of acres and destroying wells, agriculture and poultry and livestock farms, fishing ports and fishing boats, and canning and packaging plants.
Al Agha said that the Israeli military use of white phosphorus and depleted uranium have a direct impact on agriculture and public health as the length of stay of these toxic substances in the soil will continue to create disastrous results.
2 comments:
Israel did not use depleted uranium in Lebanon in 2006 nor did it use DU in Gaza in 2008/2009. I doubt that Israel even has DU anti-tank kinetic energy penetrator munitions since it does not face any enemy that has large numbers of modern Soviet Bloc tanks. Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah possessed a single tank or armored vehicle. There thus were no targets for anti-armor DU penetrators. There is no such thing as a DU-tipped bomb - that is a purely a fantasy of the propagandists and those who believe them. The UN Environment Programme Post-Conflict Branch investigated 32 sites in Lebanon and made an extensive report in 2007 that is posted at http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications.php?prog=lebanon . I presume that the propagandists will again cause UNEP or IAEA to investigate unfounded claims in Gaza yet once again. The writer who claims that DU is the "gift that keeps on giving" has been unduly influenced by lies about birth defects that began with Saddam Hussein's regime in 1992. They are often illustrated with photos of Harlequin Ichthyosis or Hydrocephalus. This demeans the child victims of these once dread genetic diseases. One of the photos, that of a supposed Iraqi women and small child shows a patient who is being treated for Hydrocephalus. That patient has probably grown into a fine young man by now (since he would be about 20 years old). Do your research. Don't just follow the lemmings who chant their slogans first and never do the research at all. If you would like to learn more about depleted uranium, go to www.depletedcranium.com or write me at DUStory-owner@yahoogroups.com - this is a deadly serious hobby of mine - no one pays me, but a lot of people who have solid scientific knowledge have helped teach me on a continuing basis.
This article gets off to the wrong foot with the title - there is no long time soil devastation due to either phosphorus, which is used in fertilizer or depleted uranium, which was not used. The writer likes to inflame you the reader. Don't fall for his nonsense. Call him on it; make him support this with some facts. Ask him what exactly the phosphorus is supposed to do to the soil that devastates it. To start with, it burns and thus is not found in any heavy concentration anywhere and it was not used everywhere in Gaza or as an anti-personnel one as claimed by the propagandists. Don't be a lemming, challenge these people who regurgitate nonsense and then call it fact and even worse, war crimes. Tell them to read the transcripts of the Nuremburg Trials or even to watch the excellent movie "Judgement at Nuremburg' - they might conceivably learn something, except that their minds were made up and woe be to anyone who tries to confuse them with the facts.
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