Israeli forces flood Gaza farmland with rainwater, damaging crops

The Israeli soldiers were found at east of the border fence with besieged enclave, eyewitnesses told Palestinian Authority's official news agency WAFA.

They turned on the rainwater collection dams along the border with the besieged enclave, causing around one square kilometre of agricultural land planted with wheat, barley, peas, cabbage, and cauliflower to sink.  

This is the second time this year Israeli forces cause damage to already-starved Gaza. Last week, Israeli forces damaged large amounts of crops when they released rainwater into the besieged territory.

Poisoning Palestinian livestock and water is a common tactic of Israel in the besieged Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, which Israel illegally took over in 1967.

In 2007, Israel imposed a land, sea and air blockade on the strip, effectively turning the coastal enclave into an open-air prison, where basic necessities such as food, fuel and medicines are severely controlled.

Nearly 70 percent of Gaza's population is food insecure.

Israel insists its blockade is necessary to isolate Hamas, with which it has fought three wars since 2008, scarring the besieged enclave.

Critics say the blockade amounts to collective punishment of the coastal enclave's two million residents.

In 2014, the UN, along with four other human rights organisations predicted Gaza will be uninhabitable by 2020 but the situation in the besieged enclave deteriorated so much that many rights organisations deemed it uninhabitable before this decade even began.



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