24 Feb 2010

Egyptians and Internationals Rally Against the Wall of Shame

The wall's construction is entering its final stages. It is made of tremendous plates of steel and is reportedly bombproof and cannot be cut through. It extends some 20 meters deep. The deepest tunnels are deeper than that, and smugglers think that the wall alone will be insufficient to cut them off. But the wall won't be acting alone. It has been built in concert with a series of 30-meter deep pipes, apparently connected to the sea. The plan is probably to pump seawater from the Mediterranean through the pipes, inundating the land and making it too soft and sodden to tunnel through.

security_wall The tunnels would not be the only casualties of the flooding. Pumping saltwater into the land, only a couple dozen meters underground, would almost certainly precipitate an environmental disaster. The Rafah area is scattered with olive and citrus farms. Furthermore, the area draws its fresh water from an underground canal that runs from a town, Sheikh Zuyawid, to Rafah in the northern part of the Egyptian Sinai. Dumping saltwater into that water source will make it unfit for human consumption. The Egyptian Embassy's Consul General in Beirut, Ahmad Hilmi, has said, "There have been no studies on the effects of the plan."
Water experts in Gaza say simply that the Wall will destroy Gaza's aquifer. Already, 90 to 95 percent of the water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption and the aquifer is about to collapse, according to the United Nations Environment Program

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