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.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
‘KAMPAI’: It is said that people in Japan began brewing rice about 2,000 years ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol Traditional Japanese knowledge and skills used in the production of sake and shochu distilled spirits were approved on Wednesday for addition to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list, a committee of the UN cultural body said It is believed people in the archipelago began brewing rice in a simple way about two millennia ago, with a third-century Chinese chronicle describing the Japanese as fond of alcohol. By about 1000 AD, the imperial palace had a department to supervise the manufacturing of sake and its use in rituals, the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association said. The multi-staged brewing techniques still used today are
RSS