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CONTENTS

Title Page no.

Introduction 2

The destruction at Gaza Strip 3

Impact on refugees 5

Conclusion 7

Bibliography 8
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INTRODUCTION

War, beyond its immediate human toll and destruction, casts a profound and far-reaching
shadow upon the environment. The impact of armed conflicts extends well beyond
battlefields, affecting ecosystems, natural resources, and the delicate balance of our planet.
From the exhaustive consumption of resources in military preparations to the enduring scars
left on landscapes, the effect of war on the environment is pervasive and enduring. This
intersection between conflict and ecology highlights the complex and often overlooked
consequences that wars inflict upon our planet. Exploring this relationship unveils the stark
reality of how warfare profoundly disrupts, damages, and alters the environment,
underscoring the urgent need for a deeper understanding and mitigation of these
consequences.

Following points summarise the ways in which environment is affected due to armed
conflicts:

 Militaries consume enormous amounts of fossil fuels. Making and keeping armies
ready uses up lots of resources like metals, water, and oil. Training and running
military stuff, like vehicles and buildings, also use tons of energy
 Bombing and other methods of modern warfare directly harm wildlife and
biodiversity.
 Pollution from war contaminates bodies of water, soil, and air.
 Warfare releases greenhouse gas emissions.
 Biodiversity destruction, deforestation, degradation of natural landscapes.
 Depleting the planet of its natural resources, affecting ecosystems worldwide.
 Damages settlements natural landscapes, roads highways etc
 Displacement of people creates the issue of refugees. Refugee camps are often
overcrowded, lacking basic needs like food water and healthcare. they live in
unhygienic conditions and are prone to diseases
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THE DESTRUCTION AT GAZA STRIP

In October, Israel hit the Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza with a 2,000-pound bomb twice. The
bombs – the second-largest in Israel’s arsenal, left 40-foot-wide craters in the ground and
turned the site into a pile of rubble, killing hundreds.

Israel’s constant airstrikes aimed at the Gaza Strip has flattened houses, building and other
structures, trapping many residents under the rubble. According to figures shared by the
United Nations, an estimated 30 per cent of houses have been destroyed or damaged in the
strikes.

The Gaza Strip has faced decades of repeated bombardment, the weapons have caused a
considerable amount of environmental damage,

In the nearly two months since the Israel-Hamas conflict began, Israel has bombarded Gaza
without pause, using an array of missiles AND white phosphorus – a compound whose use
in densely populated areas violates international humanitarian law, according to Human
Rights Watch. According to the Federation of American Scientists, a body under the U.S.
Department of Defence, the 2,000-pound Mk-84 bombs are generally filled with tritonal – a
mix of one part aluminium and three parts trinitrotoluene or TNT. When it detonates, the soil,
water, and air in the blast radius are all exposed to these substances.

Rockets also produce heat-trapping greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide. However, experts
warn that the most dangerous aspect of rocket launches is small pieces of soot and a chemical
called alumina. They get injected into the stratosphere and research shows that this material
may build up in the stratosphere over time and slowly lead to the depletion of a layer of
oxygen known as the ozone.

The broken buildings – typical of all modern wars – are pollutants. This means a large
quantity of the materials that are used to make buildings lies on the area’s streets, unsorted
and indisposed of. According to a study by PAX, a peace organisation in the Netherlands,
rubble from broken buildings includes hazardous materials like asbestos, cement, heavy
metals, domestic chemicals, and combustion products, which can cause lung irritation or
disease, chest pain, or more serious and chronic nervous and respiratory issues in the case of
long-term exposure.

Israel also controls the water supply to Palestinian territories – and cutting access to clean
water, to the Palestinian people as well as to the flora and fauna of Gaza, has become another
weapon in Israel’s arsenal. According to UNICEF, only one in 10 people in the Gaza Strip
have direct access to safe drinking water.
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Just days after Hamas’s attack in October, Israel announced that it would cut water and
electricity supply to Gaza. Aside from making daily life harder, cutting power also allows
contaminants to spread in desalination plants, including Escherichia coli bacteria that can
cause gastric distress. Sakher Al Nsour, former head of the Jordanian Geologists Syndicate,
told The Jordan Times that the Israeli aggression on Palestinians has not been limited to
targeting human beings alone; it has also extended to the environment by destroying the
infrastructure of the environmental sector. This has been achieved through the use of
hazardous and toxic materials in Palestine, leading to the destruction of sewage networks and
reservoirs, as well as the continuous depletion of natural resources, Nsour said.

When sewage mixes with seawater, the fisheries become contaminated as well, threatening a
major source of income for Gazans: fishing. This is setting aside the fact that the waters off
Gaza are at risk of overfishing because Israel’s blockade prohibits them from fishing beyond
six nautical miles in the north and 15 in the east.

The UN Environment Programme has also stated that the conflict has resulted in multiple air
pollution incidents and potentially serious contamination of ground and surface waters.

“The weaponisation of hunger, the weaponisation of water and security, and the use of the
ecological infrastructural basis of life to deprive a population,” Dr. Ranganathan said, is often
how a colonial occupation proceeds. “One of the first ways you colonise and seize territories
is not just to syphon off those resources for yourself but also to make sure that the so-called
enemy population or the ‘other’ doesn’t have the basis of life to sustain itself.”

An April 2020 study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and
Public Health, concluded that the “bodily accumulation” of heavy metals – many of which
are carcinogens (cancer-causing) and teratogens (interfering with foetal development) –
“following exposure whilst residing in attacked buildings” is one factor that predisposes
women to negative birth outcomes.

Food and medicines are also running out, with reports coming in that people are skipping
meals to sustain the leftover food in the area.

And even though it was announced earlier that humanitarian aid would enter Gaza from 20
October), there have been delays, causing more strain to the residents of the region. A US
official has expressed scepticism about the trucks being able to pass through the Rafah
Crossing on the intended date, citing the volatile nature of the situation. “The situation is still
in flux”, the report quoted US officials as saying. More than 200 trucks and 3,000 tonnes of
aid are positioned at or near the Rafah Crossing, The Guardian quoted head of the Red
Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed, as saying.
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IMPACT ON REFUGEES

Jabalia is the largest of the Gaza Strip's eight refugee camps. It is located north of Gaza City,
close to a village of the same name. After the 1948 War, refugees settled in the camp, most
having fled from villages in southern Palestine.

The blockade on Gaza has made life increasingly difficult for most refugees in the camp.
Unemployment levels have risen dramatically, and fewer families can provide for
themselves.

Basic hygiene is also of great concern in the camp, with 90 per cent of the water being unfit
for human consumption.

Overcrowding and a lack of living space characterize Jabalia camp. Shelters are built in close
proximity to one another and there is a general lack of recreational and social space. In many
cases, residents have had to add extra floors to their shelters to accommodate their families.
Often, these lack proper design. Many live in substandard conditions.
Some of the major problems here include:

 Electricity cuts
 High unemployment
 Contaminated water supply
 Extremely high population density
 Lack of availability of construction materials

Washing in polluted seawater, sleeping in packed tents, eating what little bread they can find,
or on some days none at all. In southern Gaza, hundreds of thousands of refugees are in the
midst of a humanitarian crisis that is deepening by the hour and pushing every possible safety
net to the brink.

The refugees are coming from Gaza's north, fleeing Israel's bombing campaign. They stream
down the Salah al-Din road, which connects north to south, many thousands on foot, some
with a few possessions but most bearing only their children and the clothes on their backs.

Tens of thousands have stopped in Deir al-Balah, a central Gazan city in the supposed safe
zone which has been plunged into crisis by the influx. The refugees in Deir al-Balah are
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crammed into school buildings hastily repurposed as UN shelters, up to 70 people in a single

classroom, surrounded by food waste and swarmed by flies.

"If you want to speak about space, we sleep on our sides because there is not even enough
room to lie on our backs," said Hassan Abu Rashed, a 29-year-old blacksmith who fled with
his family from Jabalia in Gaza City."If you want to speak about food, we hope we will find
a few slices of bread per day to eat. If you want to speak about health, the sewage system in
the school is broken. If you want to speak about diseases, there is chickenpox, scabies, and
lice here. If you want to speak about our condition, we are desperate."

On Saturday morning, a young family was washing themselves and their clothes in the sea,
trying to avoid the rubbish floating on the water and strewn on the sand. When they were
done, they hung their clothes up under the sun. They had been in Deir al-Balah for three
weeks."You could say that we have gone back to the dark ages," said Mahmoud al-Motawag.
"We use the sea for everything to wash ourselves, to wash our clothes, to clean our kitchen
utensils, and now to drink when we cannot find clean water. We eat just one meal each per
day, and we beg the fishermen to give us one or two fishes for the children.

As he spoke, Duaa, aged just 20, rested a hand on her large baby bump. She was due to give
birth in a month, she said. With the local hospital already on its knees, she wondered if she
might be forced to deliver at the dirty, overcrowded school. She was afraid that the birth will
take a long time and that there will be no clothes or blankets. Everything was planned for the
birth, and then everything changed."

At many of the school shelters, there is no longer room. So refugees are building ramshackle
lean-tos against the sides of the buildings, keen to be positioned as close as possible to a UN
flag in the hope of protection from an air strike, but open to the elements as the weather
worsens.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East
(UNRWA) has periodically estimated infant mortality rates among Palestine refugees in
Gaza. These surveys have recorded a decline from 127 per 1000 live births in 1960 to 20.2 in
2008.

Gaza death toll has increased by 40 percent compared to before the temporary humanitarian
truce The total number of Palestinian deaths in the Gaza Strip since 7 October, is 21,731,
including 8,697 children and 4,410 women as well as those missing and trapped under the
rubble who are now presumed dead. The number of injured people has also increased to
4,016.
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CONCLUSION

In my opinion, conflicts between governments should stay limited to negotiations and

agreements. It is immoral to target civilians, hospitals and schools.

Children miss out on their childhood; they don’t get proper schooling a whole generation
grows up without basic education or training

Newborn babies and toddlers have zero access to vaccines, making them prone to diseases.
Lack of medical facilities and food gives rise to hunger and deaths due to starvation. Over the
years, death rates rise while birth rates fall.
Bodily accumulation of heavy metals mostly carcinogens and teratogens interfere with foetal
development women are therefore prone to reproductive diseases and children are born with
birth defects.
Refugees go through hell finding accommodation and are constantly on the move. They need
to consume whatever they can get their hands on.

In short, this affects the demography of a country over a long period of time, since it causes
changes in literacy rates, birth rates, death rates and infant mortality rates.
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Bibliography

Al-Khatib , Muath . 2023. “In Gaza, Fleeing Refugees Face Hunger and Disease: ‘We Are in the
Dark Ages.’” BBC News, November 12, 2023, sec. Middle East.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67391335.
“Gaza Death Toll Has Increased by 40 Percent Compared to before the Temporary Humanitarian
Truce - Occupied Palestinian Territory | ReliefWeb.” 2023. Reliefweb.int. December 6, 2023.
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/gaza-death-toll-has-increased-40-
percent-compared-temporary-humanitarian-truce#:~:text=This%20brings.
“How Israel-Hamas War Is Turning Gaza into an Environmental Hazard.” 2023. Firstpost. October
20, 2023. https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/israel-hamas-war-bodies-rotting-dangerous-
chemicals-environmental-hazards-gaza-strip-13276482.html.
Loganathan, Sonikka. 2023. “In Gaza, Israel Is Waging an Invisible Environmental War.” The
Hindu, November 27, 2023, sec. Environment. https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-
and-environment/gaza-israel-invisible-environmental-war/article67576383.ece.
Staff, The New Arab. 2023. “Israel Bulldozes Gaza Refugee Tents, ‘Buries Alive’ Dozens.”
Https://Www.newarab.com/. December 16, 2023. https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-
bulldozes-gaza-refugee-tents-buries-alive-dozens.
UNRWA. 2008. “Palestine Refugees.” UNRWA. 2008. https://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees.
Weir, Doug. 2020. “How Does War Damage the Environment?” CEOBS. Conflict and Environment
Observatory. June 4, 2020. https://ceobs.org/how-does-war-damage-the-environment/.