Iraq’s Water Resources ‘Down 50 Percent’

This picture taken on April 20, 2022 shows a view of the left bank (eastern) of the Tigris river from the Sinek bridge (unseen) in Iraq's capital Baghdad during a severe dust storm. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)
This picture taken on April 20, 2022 shows a view of the left bank (eastern) of the Tigris river from the Sinek bridge (unseen) in Iraq's capital Baghdad during a severe dust storm. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)
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Iraq’s Water Resources ‘Down 50 Percent’

This picture taken on April 20, 2022 shows a view of the left bank (eastern) of the Tigris river from the Sinek bridge (unseen) in Iraq's capital Baghdad during a severe dust storm. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)
This picture taken on April 20, 2022 shows a view of the left bank (eastern) of the Tigris river from the Sinek bridge (unseen) in Iraq's capital Baghdad during a severe dust storm. (Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP)

Iraq’s water resources have plunged 50 percent since last year, due to repeated periods of drought, low rainfall and declining river levels, a government official told AFP on Thursday.

Oil-rich Iraq, despite its mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers, is classified as one of the world’s five countries most vulnerable to climate change and desertification.

“Water reserves are far lower than what we had last year, by about 50 percent because of poor rainfall and the quantities arriving from neighboring countries,” said Aoun Dhiab, a senior adviser at the water resources ministry.

Iraq which shares the Tigris and Euphrates with Turkey and Syria, and other rivers with Iran, has often protested that their upstream construction of dams has endangered its water resources.

Dhiab also pinned the blame on “the successive years of drought: 2020, 2021 and 2022.”

“This serves as a warning on how we must use [water resources] in the summer and next winter. We have to take these factors into account in our planning for the agriculture sector,” said the official, who had only earlier this month voiced confidence in the country’s water reserves.

The shortages and drought already obliged Iraq to halve the areas of cultivated land over the past winter season.

In November, the World Bank warned that Iraq, a country of 41 million people, could suffer a 20-percent decline in drinking water resources by 2050 due to climate change.

The Arab state ravaged by decades of conflict and sanctions needs to invest $180 billion over the next two decades on infrastructure, building dams and irrigation projects, according to the World Bank.

But only $15 million, or less than 0.2 percent, was allocated to the water resources ministry in Iraq’s 2018 budget.



Netanyahu Denounces Tactical Pauses in Gaza Fighting to Get in Aid

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) attends the Knesset plenum vote on the ultra-Orthodox conscription to military service law, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, 10 June 2024. (EPA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) attends the Knesset plenum vote on the ultra-Orthodox conscription to military service law, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, 10 June 2024. (EPA)
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Netanyahu Denounces Tactical Pauses in Gaza Fighting to Get in Aid

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) attends the Knesset plenum vote on the ultra-Orthodox conscription to military service law, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, 10 June 2024. (EPA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (C) attends the Knesset plenum vote on the ultra-Orthodox conscription to military service law, in the Knesset, Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, 10 June 2024. (EPA)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized plans announced by the military on Sunday to hold daily tactical pauses in fighting along one of the main roads into Gaza to facilitate aid delivery into the Palestinian enclave.

The military had announced the daily pauses from 0500 GMT until 1600 GMT in the area from the Kerem Shalom Crossing to the Salah al-Din Road and then northwards.

"When the prime minister heard the reports of an 11-hour humanitarian pause in the morning, he turned to his military secretary and made it clear that this was unacceptable to him," an Israeli official said.

The military clarified that normal operations would continue in Rafah, the main focus of its operation in southern Gaza, where eight soldiers were killed on Saturday.

The reaction from Netanyahu underlined political tensions over the issue of aid coming into Gaza, where international organizations have warned of a growing humanitarian crisis.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who leads one of the nationalist religious parties in Netanyahu's ruling coalition, denounced the idea of a tactical pause, saying whoever decided it was a "fool" who should lose their job.

DIVISIONS BETWEEN COALITION, ARMY

The spat was the latest in a series of clashes between members of the coalition and the military over the conduct of the war, now in its ninth month.

It came a week after centrist former general Benny Gantz quit the government, accusing Netanyahu of having no effective strategy in Gaza.

The divisions were laid bare last week in a parliamentary vote on a law on conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant voting against it in defiance of party orders, saying it was insufficient for the needs of the military.

Religious parties in the coalition have strongly opposed conscription for the ultra-Orthodox, drawing widespread anger from many Israelis, which has deepened as the war has gone on.

Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, the head of the military, said on Sunday there was a "definite need" to recruit more soldiers from the fast-growing ultra-Orthodox community.

RESERVISTS UNDER STRAIN

Despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire, an agreement to halt the fighting still appears distant, more than eight months since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas fighters on Israel triggered a ground assault on the enclave by Israeli forces.

Since the attack, which killed some 1,200 Israelis and foreigners in Israeli communities, Israel's military campaign has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health ministry figures, and destroyed much of Gaza.

Although opinion polls suggest most Israelis support the government's aim of destroying Hamas, there have been widespread protests attacking the government for not doing more to bring home around 120 hostages who are still in Gaza after being taken hostage on Oct. 7.

Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials said seven Palestinians were killed in two air strikes on two houses in Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.

As fighting in Gaza has continued, a lower level conflict across the Israel-Lebanon border is now threatening to spiral into a wider war as near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia have escalated.

In a further sign that fighting in Gaza could drag on, Netanyahu's government said on Sunday it was extending until Aug. 15 the period it would fund hotels and guest houses for residents evacuated from southern Israeli border towns.