Lack Of Gaza Flooding This Rainy Season May Deprive Propagandists Of Chance To Accuse Israel Of Opening Dams

Hamas’s diversion of aid materials and funds from public works to its own military purposes translates into inadequate drainage for the Gaza Strip.

Gaza City, January 19 – Palestinian public figures prominent pro-Palestine activists warned today that this winter’s precipitation to date has failed to overwhelm the drainage infrastructure in this coastal territory more than once so far, and that, if the trend continues, they will not get a compelling opportunity to blame the Jewish State for the recurring phenomenon.

Representatives of the Hamas movement that governs Gaza, along with volunteers and employees of various humanitarian organizations, acknowledged over the last several days that this winter’s rainfall has only flooded the streets of Gaza once, this week, and that no more such flooding will occur unless a significant quantity of rain hits the territory in a short span. Hamas’s diversion of aid materials and funds from public works to its own military purposes translates into inadequate drainage for the Gaza Strip, while anti-Israel voices insist the flooding occurs because Israel opens non-existent dams just outside the territory to overwhelm its drainage capacity and compound misery in the already-blockaded strip. Weather that fails to cooperate with those talking points will mean fewer real-time emotionally-resonant images with which to slander Israel on the subject, a prospect that worries Palestinian propagandists.

“Even during winters with lower-than-average rainfall, we could usually count on at least one storm that just inundated our systems,” recalled Madaza Hatr, a section chief at the Hamas-run Ministry of Infrastructure. “This season we’re only a little behind on the numbers for this date, but the rain that has fallen did so in smaller, more spread-out quantities, allowing our drainage systems to handle the runoff without filling the streets and forcing people off the ground floors of buildings. We might not be able to rely this year on Mother Nature cooperating with our prepared accusations against the Zionist enemy, which raises the question to what extent the enemy controls the weather to thwart our intentions.”

As with the rest of the immediate region, Gaza’s climate features significant rainfall only from autumn to spring. Proper governance in other places involves the maintenance, replacement, or construction of drains, pipes, channels, and other infrastructure to divert accumulated precipitation from flooding, an ideal set of tasks to perform during the dry summer in preparation for each rainy season. Hamas, however, with Iranian backing and little discouragement from the international donor community, devotes its efforts and funding instead to attacking Israel.

“The media will generally parrot our opening-the-dams line with no critical or skeptical pushback, so why bother changing anything?” explained Human Rights Watch field coordinator Fadiha Fashla. “We get a propaganda victory without firing a shot.”

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