Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: flood libel

Showing posts with label flood libel. Show all posts

Monday, December 26, 2022

Lying is part and parcel of Palestinian NGOs

The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights called on the international community and humanitarian organizations to intervene immediately to stop Israel from opening up nonexistent dams that are being blamed for flooding Gaza during torrential rains.

It would be easy to dismiss the hysterical lies of a tiny NGO in Gaza. Like many Palestinian NGOs, ICSPR is essentially a one man operation meant to attract funding.

Its chairman is Salah Abdel Ati, a "human rights lawyer" who is involved in a lot of other Palestinian NGOs. He is on the Board of Trustees of Law Palestine, and his bio there says that he is also "member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Middle East Studies, Canada, former director of the Palestinian Center for Policy Research & Strategic (Masarat) in the Gaza Strip (2015-2019), and former director of the Independent Commission for Human Rights in Gaza (2004-2015), Director of Programs and Training at Canaan Educational Development Institute (1997-2004). Besides, Abdel Ati is a researcher and writer who has published many books, studies, research papers, and articles in the fields of politics, law, human rights, and society. He has worked with the United Nations agencies and international, Arab and Palestinian organizations and has trained thousands of lawyers and human rights activists, judges, workers in civil society organizations, and he is the founder and a board member in several Palestinian, Arab and international NGOs and institutions."

So now we can link an obvious liar to numerous other NGOs and, according to him, "thousands of lawyers and human rights activists, judges, workers in civil society organizations" who he helped train.

There is an almost incestuous relationship between Palestinian NGOs and international NGOs who work in Gaza and the West Bank. They all build on each others' "research" and compete in who will innovate the latest anti-Israel libel.

Their funding - and salaries - depend on it.

Lying is not a disqualification from being an honored member of this cabal - it is a prerequisite.

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Palestinians still repeating the "flood libel"

In 2015, mainstream media did what it does best - parrot ridiculous Palestinian claims without checking - and reported that Israel opened dams to flood Gaza. Social media user made fun of AFP for being so stupid, and for once, AFP actually checked the facts and retracted its story, acknowledging that there were no "dams" in the Negev that Israel could open up to flood Gaza.

AFP said that its reporting was "shattering a long-held Palestinian myth."

Someone should tell the Palestinians that.

The mayor of Zawaida in Gaza, Sami Abu Muhaisen, said that "the occupation" deliberately flooded the eastern regions in the center of Gaza by opening dams and opening water and sewage culverts, which caused the flooding of agricultural lands, damage to crops, and the accumulation of water in large quantities in Salah al-Din Street.

There was also heavy flooding in Mecca this weekend, but Israel has not been blamed for that.

Yet.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The "flood libel" returns for this year's rainy season in Gaza

It's been raining heavily in the Levant, causing some localized flooding throughout the region.

And, like every year, Gaza officials are blaming their own flooding on Israel opening up non-existent dams.

The Nusseirat Municipality in the central Gaza Strip "confirmed" that the "Israeli occupation" opened the dams around of Wadi Beit Hanoun, threatening an environmental catastrophe, as the opening of dams leads to the flooding of the stream and the flooding of neighboring areas and houses.

The head of Hamas's Winter Emergency Committee, Zuhdi Al-Ghariz, also said that "the Israeli occupation opened dams in the east and north of the Gaza Strip on Sunday, which threatens to cause a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe for the people of the Strip."

Back in 2015, after AFP parroted the absurd claims to widespread derision, the French press agency belatedly went to the Negev to see if any dams existed and found that it was a Palestinian conspiracy theory with no basis in reality.

In fact, some of the responsibility for the flooding from Wadi Gaza comes from Gazans themselves.

"Wadi Gaza is liable to flood in an area which is about 70-100 metres wide but in some of these places, there has been illegal construction and cultivation, which has reduced this area to 15 or 20 metres," Munther Shoblak, a senior official in Gaza's water utility, told AFP at the time.

Notice that this year the libelers are emphasizing blaming Israel for the "environmental catastrophe" aspect. Only last week, the anti-Israel graphic designers at Visualizing Palestine (favored by Human Rights Watch) accused Israel of - get this - "climate apartheid." Because, you know, the Jews control the weather.

They also threw in "green colonialism," "greenwashing" and "environmental racism."

Throw them in a blender and pour them out and the letters all spell out "Antisemitism."

Iranian media and BDS activists repeat the Flood Libel

Iranian media has nicely translated the Palestinian flood libel to English:

Mother of Terrorism: Zionist regime floods Palestinian farmlands in Gaza with Rainwater

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Not even an inch in Occupied Palestine isn’t subjected to the apartheid entity’s terrorism.

Large swaths of farmland in the besieged Gaza Strip have been flooded after “Israeli” officials deliberately emptied out nearby rainwater storages, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage to agricultural areas in the impoverished Palestinian enclave.

Farmers east of Zeitoun and Shajayeh districts of Gaza City told official Palestinian Wafa news agency that agricultural crops were completely destroyed on more than 500 dunmas [123.5 acres] of flooded land.

They argued that “Israeli” authorities open up the gates of nearby rainwater storages only a few days before harvest season, effectively flooding Gaza crops and causing a great deal of losses.

Meanwhile, a group of Palestinian non-governmental organizations has condemned the apartheid entity over flooding Palestinian-owned farmlands in the Gaza Strip.

“We hold the ‘Israeli’ regime fully responsible for the direct and indirect damage inflicted on Gaza and its residents” the group said in a statement.

The NGOs further stated “We call on the international community as well as humanitarian and human rights organizations to intervene immediately to prevent "Israeli" attacks on [Palestinian] farmers and their lands, to protect them and to ensure that the occupiers do not repeat their aggression.”

The Palestinian group also called for an international mechanism in order to compensate Gaza farmers, especially as agricultural products are the main food basket of people in the Strip.

The NGOs underscored that “Israeli” authorities intentionally open up the gates of dams and rainwater storages, damaging agricultural crops, infrastructure and various facilities in the Palestinian territory.

One of the people spreading the Iranian version of the ridiculous lie is Joe Catron, a BDS activist who writes for Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss.

The Palestinian Flood Libel returns (update)

It's raining and snowing in Israel, which means that there are floods in Gaza. And whenever that happens, the Gaza authorities claim Israel is opening dams to cause the floods.

The Gaza agriculture ministry issued a statement blaming Israel for the flooding:

The spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture in Gaza, M. Adham Al-Bassiouni, said Thursday that hundreds of dunams of agricultural land east of Shejaiya, east of Gaza City, were flooded, as the Israeli occupation forces deliberately opened gates and water dams towards their lands.

Al-Bassiouni explained, to Palestine Today News Agency that in the early morning hours, the occupation forces opened the dams towards farmers' lands, which resulted in the submersion of hundreds of agricultural dunams, which led to the destruction of agricultural crops.

He indicated that due to the bad weather conditions, the ministry's crews were unable to go to the place, indicating that after the end of the depression, a special team will go to the place to determine the extent of the damage and to report on the repeated violations of the occupation against farmers.

Al-Bassiouni stressed that his ministry will communicate with human rights and international institutions to expose the systematic crimes of occupation.

The Palestinian NGO Network also issued a statement blaming Israel for opening the non-existent dams.

The agriculture ministry and Palestinian Red Crescent made similar charges during floods last month.

Which shows that Palestinian government, NGOs and medical professionals have no problem with lying. Yet these same officials are regularly quoted in Western media as if they are credible.

UPDATE: The official Palestinian Authority Wafa news agency is claiming this as well.

I can't wait for the flood libel to reach Iran

Palestinian media are reporting that for the third time this week, Israel opened up some (nonexistent) dams to flood farmland where Gaza farmers planted wheat, barley, legumes and other crops.

Quds News Network, which recently was honored by Google and the news NGOs, said:

Abdellatif Qannou’, a spokesperson for Hamas, said that the Israeli ongoing assaults on farmers and their properties are a crime and a form of the Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people.

Qannou’ added that this is an example of the Israeli barbarism, arrogance, and blatant violation of all humanitarian laws and international norms, which require an international intervention to leash the occupation and end its barbaric policy against our people.

Apparently news awards don't care about things like "truth" as long as the news source attracts youth.

There was severe and deadly flooding in Iran this past week as well. It took days before Iran's president acknowledged the disaster.

I wonder if Israeli dams are powerful enough to flood Iran? Hmmm.

Meanwhile, even the UN says that Israel has nothing to do with the flooding.

Some 235,000 people residing in 39 low-lying areas lacking adequate infrastructure across the Gaza Strip are at risk of flooding during the upcoming winter season due to possible overflow of stormwater facilities and sewage pumping stations, according to estimates by the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Cluster for the oPt. This may expose an already vulnerable population to waterborne diseases, property losses, disruption in access to livelihoods and services, and displacement.

The immediate reasons behind this risk are gaps in maintenance and repairs of the relevant WASH facilities, compounded by the shortage of fuel to operate backup generators during long electricity outages: both factors are driven by significant funding shortages.

In 2019, less than 74 per cent of the amount needed to operate Gaza’s 484 water and sanitation facilities was funded, leaving a critical gap of $18 million.

According to the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), Gaza’s main provider of water and wastewater services, the running costs of Gaza’s 484 public water and sanitation facilities are US$68 million per year, including staff salaries, fuel, electricity, chemicals and spare parts. In 2019, less than 74 per cent of this amount was funded, leaving a critical gap of $18 million. According to the Palestine Water Law, the main source of funding for the operation and maintenance of these facilities is the recovery of bills from consumers. However, recovery rates in Gaza currently stand at around 20 percent, forcing CMWU to rely primarily on support from international donors, which has significantly declined in 2019.

80% of Gazans aren't paying their utility bills that would keep them safe from disasters like this.

(h/t Irene)

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Official Palestinian media now pushes "flood libel" after a pause of five years

Old libels against Israel never die. They always come back, zombie-like.

The lie that Israel steals the organs of Palestinians has returned in recent weeks and has been published in a few Arab media outlets, including in English.

And the lie that Israel has dams in the Negev which are opened to flood Gaza has been re-appearing in Muslim media as well. It appears to have started with the Gaza Ministry of Agriculture, run by Hamas, making the false accusation. Anadolu published it, UK Muslim News published it, Kuwait's news agency published it. And now, it is again the official position of the Palestinian Authority, as its Wafa news agency "reports:"

The occupation forces opened one of the dams of stolen water that reaches the Palestinian underground reservoir in the Gaza Strip, flooding hundreds of acres of land east of the Al-Shujaiya neighborhood, which resulted in severe damage to agricultural crops.

"The Israeli occupation forces have built dams along the border of the Gaza Strip, to prevent the natural flow of rain water into the Palestinian territories, and divert it to pour into the Israeli underground reservoir within the territories of 1948, thus depriving the Palestinians of the most important source for the underground reservoir which is rain water. "

"When the amount of water exceeds the capacity of the dams to seize and transfer it, they are opened, which leads to a rush of water in large quantities that will flood farmers' crops and inflict heavy damage on them," Al-Sharif added, referring to the repetition of the process of opening the dams in recent years during winter months.

The accidents caused by the flooding of agricultural lands, as a result of the opening of the Israeli dams, are mostly concentrated in the Gaza Valley and East Shujaiya.

No, there are no dams or floodgates in the Negev. AFP even debunked this claim five years ago. But Palestinians are so used to blaming Israel for everything that they feel compelled to find a fairy tale that they can tell themselves to explain this disaster as well.

Iran's PressTV even made a video pushing the flood libel:

Here is the 2015 AFP story that showed that there are no dams in the Negev:

Even when libels against Israel are thoroughly debunked, there is no compunction in anti-Israel media to resurrect the stories. People forget and a new generation of readers eager to lap up the lies is always coming up.

Sounds a lot like how antisemitism works.

(The funny thing is that Palestinian media eagerly published the story that Israeli fighter jets were damaged in the floods as well. Why didn't they just build dams?)

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The Flood Libel returns - with a new twist

From Middle East Monitor:

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.

This absurd accusation was popular a few years ago. In 2015 AFP even published the accusations. Juan Cole and HRW's Sarah Leah Whitson doubled down. But when the truth was pointed out, AFP didn't just issue a correction, but it published a full debunking of the libel and made an accompanying video showing it was a complete lie.

The accusation of Israel opening floodgates has since died down - until now.

(The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture referred to is the Hamas version, not the PA version. )

But then Middle East Monitor goes even further

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.

Israel builds reservoirs in the desert just to deprive Palestinians of rainwater??

Just more lies about Israel being reported and retweeted by the usual crowd of Israel haters.

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Gaza officials say Israel plans to open those nonexistent dams again

It is raining in Gaza, and you know what that means.

Rumors started spreading in Palestinian social media that Israeli officials formally told their Palestinian counterparts that they plan to open up those dams that don't exist so Gaza can be flooded. As usual, these rumors were accepted as fact.

The mayor of Deir al-Balah issued a statement that there is fear that Israel already opened up those dams, because that is the only possible explanation for flooding during rains.

The director of civil defense in Gaza says that he was informed that Israel planned to open dams of its reservoirs if they filled up, and that he was in touch with the Red Cross to keep tabs on the matter.

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Sure as rain: Gazans accuse Israel of opening nonexistent dams to flood them

It happens every year, and sure enough this year is no exception.

Whenever there are heavy rains and snow that flood Gaza, the Palestinians blame Israel for "opening dams" that don't exist.

Al Watan Voice, Palestine News Network, Al Resalah, Palestine Times and many other Arab media outlets are saying:

"Israeli" occupation forces on Saturday evening opened rainwater dams towards the agricultural lands in the east of Gaza. Local sources reported that the occupation is opening rainwater dams in different areas east of the city which resulted in the flooding of tens of dunums of agricultural land.

Every winter, the Israeli occupation authorities deliberately open dams near their border with the Gaza Strip.

I've been documenting these spurious claims since 2010.

Last year the official PA news agency went beyond blaming Israel for opening dams to claiming that Israel is actively pumping water into Gaza just to flood them.

Some idiots hate Israel so much that they claim that since Israel does have a few tiny limans (mini-dams to create oases) and reservoirs in communities near Gaza (as I'd pointed out years before) that anyone pointing out that there are no dams with the capability of being opened towards Gaza is just an evil hasbarist. Since Gazans claim it, it must be true and Israelis are all liars.

But no less an organization than Al Jazeera issued a correction last year after they quoted one of the may dam accusations:

Proving that Al Jazeera is just another Zionist media outlet.

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Arabs already started blaming Israel for Gaza winter flooding

From Ma'an:

Gaza's Civil Defense evacuated 90 Palestinians from their homes as rain brought flooding to parts of the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday.

Muhammad al-Majdanah, chief spokesperson for the Civil Defense, told Ma'an that seven houses were evacuated from Khan Younis in southern Gaza, totaling 90 people.

The floods are exacerbated by a chronic lack of fuel that limits how much water can be pumped out of flood-stricken areas.

These fuel shortages are the result of an eight-year Israeli blockade, which also limits the import of other kinds of machinery related to pumping and sewage management that Gazans require to combat the floods.

There are no restrictions on fuel into Gaza.

There are no restrictions on water pumps into Gaza.

There are severe restrictions on Hamas' ability to anticipate the flooding that happens every single year and to prepare properly ahead of time.

Hamas-leaning Felesteen interviews some of the victims, and even they blame their leaders::

Shadi Suwai'id is also a resident of the area, and his house is being flooded, he explained to the Felesteen newspaper that the pumps that are available in the region do not accommodate large amounts of water. He stated that the concerned authorities did not implement any projects to solve the problem on the ground, saying: "they promised to find solutions, and then they told us that it is difficult to find a radical solution to the problem because it is expensive and requires a lot of money that the municipality cannot provide for us." Suwai'id added: "We have received promises without implementation of something the ground. There is no problem that has no solution, but it seems that the concerned authorities do not want to move, or maybe they do not have sufficient funds. we cannot rule out their happiness by the disaster because they benefit from it to bring support and money, "

The article goes on to interview municipal officials who claim that they have purchased new, larger pumps this year, again showing that Ma'an is lying by saying that Israel does not allow pumps to enter.

Finally, the Felesteen article says that the authorities are readying themselves for when Israel opens its (nonexistent) dams to flood Gaza, saying that they have heavy equipment to dig large trenches to capture the water before it causes damage.

You know, equipment that could also be used to dig tunnels.

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AFP publishes a detailed retraction of #FloodLibel (UPDATE: Video)

Even though it is days too late, it is the best demolition of the "flood libel" that the mainstream media has published yet:

Tzeelim (Israel) (AFP) - Once again this winter, following days of very heavy rainfall across the region, the banks of a riverbed running through central Gaza were breached, flooding dozens of Palestinian homes.

For the residents, there was no doubt: Israel was responsible after deliberately opening "a dam" to flood the enclave.

But an examination of the facts on the Israeli side tells another story, shattering a long-held Palestinian myth.

People living in Wadi Gaza say flooding happens every year after heavy rain, creating yet another challenge for those struggling to survive in the tiny coastal territory.

Residents of the Gaza Strip have lived through three wars in the past six years and are unable to leave due to an Israeli blockade.

That Israel, the invisible enemy on the other side of the fence, would flood Gaza in a bid to make life even worse is therefore accepted as fact -- as is the alleged existence of one or more dams upstream controlled by the Jewish state.

Following the latest flood at the weekend, the local authorities in Gaza on Sunday published an "urgent" statement which reiterated the claim that Israel was to blame.

AFP reported these allegations on Sunday February 22, in the form of a video and photos showing the flooding in the village of Al-Mughraqa in central Gaza.

The script of the video and the photo captions said Israel had opened the sluice gates of a dam. And the video included interviews with residents openly accusing the Jewish state.

The AFP images, in particular the video, unleashed a scathing response on social networks.

The Israeli authorities denied the information and said they had allowed four high-power water pumps into Gaza ahead of the storm in order to cope with any potential flooding.

The criticism was even more acute because Israel itself had suffered from flooding in the south.

Al-Mughraqa is located on the edge of Wadi Gaza, a river which is dry most of the year and that has its source in the southern West Bank. The watercourse then runs through the Negev desert and Gaza before reaching the Mediterranean.

In Israel, the section which links up with Gaza is known as Nahal Besor.

"In Nahal Besor, there are no dams that can be opened or closed, meaning that there is nothing that can cause or prevent a flood," said Nehemia Shahaf, head of the Drainage and Rivers Authority in the Negev area.

"To my knowledge there is no dam on the Israeli side and terrain is not suited to the construction of a dam," she told AFP.

Trottier believes that due to the heavy rains, "the waters gathered naturally and it flooded."

She said there were "a lot of myths about the question of water in the Palestinian territories and Israel."

Israeli experts say that the volume of water which flooded the river last week was unusually large due to the heavy rainfall, with an estimated five million cubic metres passing through Nahal Besor. The last time it happened was in 2010.

"It was a lot for one storm," explained Boaz Kretschmer, head of strategy at Eshkol Regional Council, the local authority in an area of Israel flanking central and southern Gaza.

"We had 30-40mm of rain across the whole region, in the Negev, in Hebron, across the whole drainage basin and of course, the water ended up in Gaza."

What does exist here is a low stone structure, barely a metre high, next to a shallow concrete channel, which is sometimes referred to as a "diversion dam" -- whose purpose is to slow the flow of water so some of it can be diverted into a nearby reservoir for irrigation purposes, Kretschmer explained.

It has no gates, nor openings, and when the flood waters hit, they simply glide over it as if it did not exist.

"If it does anything, it actually reduces the quantity of water flowing towards Gaza, and not the opposite," Shahaf said.

"We don't try and stop the flow of water. That would be impossible -- it has incredible power," explained Kretschmer.

"There have been many dreams and plans in the past about how to stop the water because it comes in such a quantity that it could save the Negev. But all attempts to channel the floodwaters have failed. It's just not possible."

Experts believe that the flooding in the impoverished Gaza Strip, which is home to 1.8 million people and has been languishing under an Israel blockade since 2006, was likely exacerbated by chronic infrastructure problems and a flurry of illegal construction close to the riverbed.

But Munther Shoblak, a senior official in Gaza's water utility, said the Israelis "are not free from responsibility".

"They know people live on the other side of the border and they could have informed us that the water was coming.

"As usual, they didn't."

But he also acknowledged "some Palestinian responsibility" for the flooding.

"Wadi Gaza is liable to flood in an area which is about 70-100 metres wide but in some of these places, there has been illegal construction and cultivation, which has reduced this area to 15 or 20 metres," he told AFP.

I added a comment, which is not visible as of this writing:

Better late than never.

AFP might want to add that the Palestinian Authority, not only Hamas, also blamed Israel for the floods, even releasing a statement that they could not believe that the international community wasn't condemning Israel for opening the mythical dams.

(h/t Michaloush)

UPDATE:

(h/t Rudi)

PA doubles down on flood libel

The PA and Hamas might disagree on everything, and insult each other regularly, but if a Hamas agency declares that Israel is opening up dams without evidence, then by Allah the PA is going to believe them!

The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned on Monday Israel’s act of pumping large amounts of rainwater into the Gaza Strip, which flooded dozens of homes and caused injuries among Palestinians.

On February 21, the Israeli army opened the floodgates of a canal leading to central Gaza, which resulted in the removal of sand mounds along the border with Israel, said Gaza's Civil Defense Directorate said in a statement.

Civil Defense said about 50 homes sank in the floods, while a number of local residents in eastern Gaza areas were reported injured. There were also reports of deaths of livestock and poultry.

The ministry considered this Israeli action as ‘arbitrary’ and a continuation of Israel’s aggression against the people of Gaza, stressing that this action is a crime against humanity and in violation of all norms and standards.

It expressed surprise at the international community’s silence over this ‘crime’, demanding a prompt move to stop the Israeli siege imposed on the strip, to provide the people of Gaza with the necessary protection, and to prosecute the perpetrators at international courts.

I have a fantasy that in some back rooms at the UN, when the PLO representative starts babbling bizarre accusations to real diplomats, they just tell him to shut the hell up.

Meanwhile, the list of people who are willing to repeat the lie about Israel opening nonexistent dams grows to include fifth-rate academic Juan Cole and Human Rights Watch's Sarah Leah Whitson.

In a sane world, the list of people and news organizations that repeated this lie would instantly lose all credibility. Too bad we live in an insane world.

(h/t Judge Dan)

Flood libel, part 2

Yesterday, I pointed out a false Ma'an story claiming that Israel deliberately opened up "dams" to flood Gaza with excess rainwater. As I pointed out, there are no dams near Gaza; there are some reservoirs but no evidence that they released any water.

This is one of those obvious lies that start getting believed by being repeated year after year, and even AFP ended up reporting that Israel opened up dams without doing a modicum of fact checking. ("Journalist" Max Blumenthal repeated the lie as well, as did Radio France International.)

Today, the claims were proven to be lies, as CAMERA reports:

Regarding the claim that Israel opened dams, thereby flooding Gaza, a spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) told CAMERA:

The claim is entirely false, and southern Israel does not have any dams. Due to the recent rain, streams were flooded throughout the region with no connection to actions taken by the State of Israel.

Prior to the storm, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories allowed the transfer of four water pumps belonging to the Palestinian Water Authority from Israel into Gaza to supplement the 13 pumps already in the Gaza Strip in dealing with any potential flooding throughout the area.
In addition, Nechemia Shahaf, the head of the Drainage Authority for the Shakma-Besor Region, confirmed to CAMERA that there are no dams which can be opened and closed in southern Israel. Shahaf said, "There is a diverting dam one meter high which directs water to reservoirs. This is a low dam which cannot be opened or closed." He also noted that the singular dam, which cannot be opened, is next to Kibbutz Gvulot, and approximately 20 kilometers away from Gaza.

But that was only one of the false stories claiming that Israel floods Palestinians.

IMEMC and Palestine News Network claimed that somehow Israel managed to flood a "refugee" camp by opening "barrages":

Aida refugee camp north Bethlehem city has drowned after Gilo Israeli settlement opened its barrages, throwing all excess rain and melted snow water onto the camp.

Aida camp is adjacent to the Israeli apartheid wall, which is backed by the Gilo settlement northwest, that opened the barrages to flood the homes of refugees.

The head of water pumps in the camp, Sami Hmedan, said that Israeli occupation authorities opens the barrage water with disregard to the Palestinians and without any official concerns.

Gilo as seen from Aida. Where are the "barrages"?

The only "barrage" between Gilo and Aida is the security barrier. If anything, that protected Aida from excessive flooding.

Or are they saying that those devious Israelis removed the "apartheid wall" to flood Arabs and then quickly put it back?

Who knows what crazy slander they will come up with next. But we do know that a percentage of those lies will end up in AFP and other mainstream media, because if there is something that Palestinian Arabs have learned over the years, it is that repeating their lies gets results.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv, Judge Dan, Bob Knot, Nurit Baytch, Rudi Roth)

Gazans (and the PA) again blame Israel for the weather (update x2)

From Ma'an:

Hundreds of Palestinians were evacuated from their homes Sunday morning after Israeli authorities opened a number of dams near the border, flooding the Gaza Valley in the wake of a recent severe winter storm.

The Gaza Ministry of Interior said in a statement that civil defense services and teams from the Ministry of Public Works had evacuated more than 80 families from both sides of the Gaza Valley (Wadi Gaza) after their homes flooded as water levels reached more than three meters.

Gaza has experienced flooding in recent days amid a major storm that saw temperatures drop and frigid rain pour down.

The storm displaced dozens and caused hardship for tens of thousands, including many of the approximately 110,000 Palestinians left homeless by Israel's assault over summer.

The Gaza Valley (Wadi Gaza) is a wetland located in the central Gaza Strip between al-Nuseirat refugee camp and al-Moghraqa. It is called HaBesor in Hebrew, and it flows from two streams -- one whose source runs from near Beersheba, and the other from near Hebron.

Israeli dams on the river to collect rainwater have dried up the wetlands inside Gaza, and destroyed the only source of surface water in the area.

Locals have continued to use it to dispose of their waste for lack of other ways to do so, however, creating an environmental hazard.

This is not the first time Israeli authorities have opened the Gaza Valley dams.

In Dec. 2013, Israeli authorities also opened the dams amid heavy flooding in the Gaza Strip. The resulting floods damaged dozens of homes and forces many families in the area from their homes.

In 2010, the dams were opened as well, forcing 100 families from their homes. At the time civil defense services said that they had managed to save seven people who had been at risk of drowning.

So my January prediction that Gazans would blame Israel for flooding was a month early.

In previous years I searched for these dams that the Jews keep opening. I finally found the "dam" - a reservoir in Nahal Oz whose walls failed once in 2001. (There are couple of similar reservoirs around Gaza, others throughout the Negev, and many tiny "limans" to create mini-oases.)

Here is a satellite image of this reservoir, so you can compare it with the size of Gaza itself and determine on your own whether it can create floods three meters high through central Gaza by someone opening its floodgates:

UPDATE: The official PA "news" agency Wafa goes beyond this, saying Israel is pumping water into Gaza!

The Israeli authorities last night pumped large amounts of rainwater into the Gaza Strip, causing tens of neighboring homes to sink, according to witnesses and media sources.

Civil Defense said about 50 homes sank in the floods, while a number of local residents in eastern Gaza areas were reported injured. There were also reports of deaths of livestock and poultry.

“The [Israeli] army opened the floodgates of a canal leading to central Gaza, which resulted in the removal of sand mounds along the border with Israel,” Gaza's Civil Defense Directorate said in a statement.

(h/t Bob K)

UPDATE 2: AFP has shown how little journalistic integrity it has by picking up the Ma'an story without doing any fact checking. Meaning that they are parroting Hamas spokesmen.

"Damming" evidence of Hamas and Iranian lies

Both Iran's FARS News and Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades website report:

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has issued a report detailing the winter storm's impacts on the occupied Palestinian territories during the past few days.

The report pointed to the deliberate opening of Israeli dams toward Gaza borders which led to the flooding of several houses and large agricultural areas, deepening the economic losses and crises in the besieged Strip.

"Heavy flooding across the Gaza Strip resulted in the displacement of approximately 6,000 people to temporary shelters and relatives’ homes at the height of the storm. Most of the displaced families have left schools and community centers; however, approximately, 1,000 were still taking shelter in three schools as of 15 December," OCHA’s report said, pointing out that the situation in most flooded areas has improved except for Gaza city.

I debunked the dam story a week ago, but I was surprised that OCHA would have reported it. They are usually more subtle in their lies.

Turns out - they didn't.

The Iranian FARS' version quotes Palestine Info Center for that blurb. PIC is a Hamas-linked British organization but I couldn't find it mentioned there.

The UN OCHA story they quoted is here, and says nothing about any illusory Israeli dam.

Either PIC did report this story and I couldn't find it (or they removed it,) or Iran made up the story, or maybe Hamas made up the story.

Either way, you cannot trust a word from Iran or Hamas.

Dam!

Ma'an "reported" on Friday:

The Gaza government's Disaster Response Committee announced late Friday that Israeli authorities had opened up dams just east of the Gaza Strip, flooding numerous residential areas in nearby villages within the coastal territory.

Committee chairman Yasser Shanti said in a press conference that Israeli authorities had opened up dams just to the east of the border with the Gaza Strip earlier in the day.

He warned that residential areas within the Gaza Valley would be flooding within the coming hours.

And look at that - they did get flooded, just as he predicted! The torrential rains had little to do with the Gazans being under up to 2 meters of water - it was all from Israel keeping huge amounts of water in storage in the Negev, just waiting for the right time to flood Gaza! (Which, coincidentally, happens during rainstorms.)

Iran's PressTV reported the dam story as well, as multiple Gazans told the tall tale:

Followers of this blog may remember that there was flooding in Gaza during a huge rainstorm in 2010, and they blamed Israel opening up a dam then as well.

I looked hard to find any dam between southern Israel (which is, of course, desert) and Gaza. Finally, I found it.

In 2001, a reservoir in Nahal Oz burst, and it did cause some flooding in Gaza. NGO Al Mezan said that the 2010 flooding was caused by the same "dam" that was opened by Israel in 2001, just to make Gazans' lives miserable.

And the "dam" story seemed to grow from there from a simple lie to a complex web of lies.

(h/t Asher)

Hamas accuses Israel of flooding Gaza - during winter storm

The Al Qassam Brigades of Hamas tweeted this on Thursday:

Alas, over a day later I cannot find the news story that documents this amazing event of Israel opening up a dam in the Negev to flood Gaza.

However, Gazans did accuse Israel of an identical crime - using the identical fictitious dam - exactly three years ago.

(I found one of the fake "dams" a short while later.)

I found the "dam!"

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights also blames Israel for supposedly opening up a dam in order to flood poor Gazans during torrential rains last week:

For the second time in the past ten years, at approximately 6pm on Monday 18 January 2010, Israel opened the floodgates of one of the dams in the Gaza Valley, which flows into Gaza from the east. As a result, dozens of Palestinian houses and properties were damaged. Israel built this floodgate to prevent the rainwater's natural flow into Gaza, depriving the Gaza aquifer from its main natural source of underground water.

Here we see how trustworthy this prestigious "human rights" organization is. Since it is the second time it happened, it must tell us about the first:

A similar situation had occurred when the so-called Nahal Oz dam suddenly collapsed nine years ago, on 26 March 2001. Hundreds of donams of agricultural lands; chicken and cow farms; and rural houses were damaged.

It seems we found a dam, in Nahal Oz! Yet the news stories from that date don't quite call it a dam - it is a reservoir:

A special committee has been established to investigate the bursting of a reservoir near Kibbutz Nahal Oz yesterday which caused extensive flooding and the loss of over 3 million cubic meters of irrigation water. The purified sewage water piped in from the Dan region treatment plant flooded vast tracts of arable land and swamped low-lying fields of Palestinian farmers in the nearby Gaza strip.

So we see that Al Mezan is lying in the first paragraph when they claim that Israel opened the floodgates in 2001; it is lying when they said that Israel opened a dam in 2010, it is lying when it says that the purpose of the "dam" is to deprive Gazans of rainwater (the water in the reservoir is piped in as purified sewage water for Israeli agriculture.) But it means that we can now find that picture of the "dam" we were looking for, even if it was never opened - and, indeed, if it is unlikely to even have a mechanism for opening.