Palestine: Hope, Evaporating: Climate Change Resilience under Occupation in the West Bank

Human Wrongs Watch By the Norwegian Refugee Council*

“Look at the olives,” says Adlah Taha Abdallah Ali, 66, in the fields of her home village of Al Khadr, Bethlehem, in the southern West Bank. “See how they are dry … they did not get their share of water. Because of the high temperatures, there is not much oil in them.”

Adlah, like her fellow farmers across the region, is battling with the effects of a warming planet.

According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, countries of the Middle East are “among the world’s most exposed states to the accelerating impacts of human-caused climate change, including soaring heat waves, declining precipitation, extended droughts, more intense sandstorms and floods”.

The West Bank is no exception.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), under a global high emissions scenario, it is projected that in the West Bank by the end of this century, the mean annual temperature will rise on average by 4.4C.

Approximately 60 per cent of days on average will be defined as “hot” and total annual precipitation will decrease by roughly 30 per cent.

The frequency and intensity of dry episodes and drought events is predicted to increase alongside a decrease in the frequency and intensity of wet events.

“Extremely high temperatures have negatively impacted our harvest,” reflects Adlah. “In previous years, temperatures have been high, but conditions were still better than this year. We have seen almost no rain since February.”

She explains: “Temperatures have soared in the day, then dropped sharply at night. Because of this, the grapes ripen unevenly, with the outer parts appearing ready while the insides remain under-ripe. Similarly, the thyme has dried out and lost its usual colour and texture.”

“We fear that the land will become neglected and Israel will seize it.”Adlah, Palestinian farmer

Yet, Adlah faces an additional – and, at times, insurmountable – challenge that her counterparts in other regions of the world do not: a belligerent military occupation more than half a century old.

“We can’t move freely or leave the village because there are Israeli military checkpoints at all entrances,” she laments.

“To reach our lands, we have to take longer routes, often along very rough roads, and [even] these routes are not always passable because of the military presence. Now we fear that the land will become neglected and Israel will seize it.”

A choking reality

As global temperatures rise and all states and populations, to different degrees, face climate-related challenges, the building of climate change resilience – or capacity to adapt – is critical.

However, like all other aspects of life in the West Bank, climate change cannot be separated from the reality of an Israeli military occupation.

Now in its 58th year, the occupation is characterised by the fragmentation and annexation of territory, and was recently determined to be unlawful by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Stemming from this occupation is a wide range of policies and practices that severely undermine Palestinians’ ability to strategically adapt to the harsh reality of climate change.

Many of these policies and practices can be traced back to Israel being given full administrative and security control over Area C under the second phase of the mid-1990s Oslo Accords.

Area C accounts for roughly 60 per cent of the West Bank and contains the bulk of the occupied Palestinian territory’s (oPt’s) undeveloped lands and natural resources.

A wide range of policies and practices … severely undermine Palestinians’ ability to strategically adapt to the harsh reality of climate change.

Although the Accords required Israel to transfer responsibility for Area C to the newly formed Palestinian Authority (PA) over a period of five years, this never happened.

Instead, Israel has imposed a discriminatory planning system that aggressively pursues the displacement and dispossession of Palestinians alongside the transfer of its own citizens into Area C.

The result is that the PA has been largely deprived of the means to develop Palestinian resilience to the effects of climate change, which is one of its many responsibilities.

*SOURCE: Norwegian Refugee Council. Go to ORIGINAL: https://www.nrc.no/feature/2024/hope-evaporating-climate-change-resilience-under-occupation-in-the-west-bank/

2025 Human Wrongs Watch

Source: https://human-wrongs-watch.net/2025/01/05/palestine-hope-evaporating-climate-change-resilience-under-occupation-in-the-west-bank/