The densely populated Gaza Strip has long lacked sufficient drinking water, but a new project helps ease the shortage with a solar-powered process to extract potable water straight from the air.
Unusually, the project operating in the enclave, which has been blockaded by Israel since 2007, is the brainchild of a Russian-Israeli billionaire, Michael Mirilashvili.
The company he heads, Watergen, has developed atmospheric water generators that can produce 5,000 liters to 6,000 liters of drinking water per day, depending on the humidity.
Photo: AFP
With just a few machines operating in Gaza, Watergen is far from meeting demand for the 2 million people who live in the coastal enclave wedged between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.
“But, it’s a start,” said Fathi Sheikh Khalil, an engineer with the Palestinian civil society group Damour, which operates one of the machines because Israeli firms cannot work in Gaza.
The strip, plagued by severe economic woes and regular power shortages, has also been facing a worsening water crisis for years.
An overused aquifer has been degraded by saltwater intrusion and contaminated by pollutants, making most available water salty and dangerous to drink, which forces imports of bottled water.
Only 3 percent of Gaza’s own water meets international standards, according to the UN, which in 2012 predicted that ecological pressures would have made Gaza “unliveable” by now.
Multiple studies have linked rising rates of kidney stones and high incidence of diarrhea in Gaza to the consumption of sub-standard water.
Several players are working to solve the water shortage, including the EU, which is supporting a massive seawater desalination plant.
Watergen’s offices are in a glass tower in Tel Aviv, about 80km north of Gaza.
Mirilashvili bought Watergen after moving to Israel in 2009, and the company has since exported its machines to more than 80 countries.
The company’s chief executive officer and president has a colorful personal history, including time spent in a Russian prison following a kidnapping conviction in a trial that the European Court of Justice later found was flawed.
A religious Jew with a picture of a prominent Orthodox rabbi on his office wall, Mirilashvili told reporters that when he learned about Gaza’s water crisis, he immediately wanted to help.
“Our goal was that everyone on Earth could be supplied with drinkable water,” he said. “It was immediately clear that we had to help our neighbors first.”
Israel tightly controls imports to Gaza and Mirilashvili said that getting his machines approved “took some time.”
Israel’s army “liked the idea, but needed to check the equipment,” he said.
Watergen’s technology is suited to Gaza because it runs on solar panels, an asset in the enclave where the one power plant, which requires imported fuel, lacks the capacity to meet demand.
Mirilashvili lamented that he cannot see his machines at work, as Israelis are forbidden from entering the area.
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