SAWA LAKE, Iraq: A “No Fishing” sign on the edge of Iraq’s western desert is one of the few clues that this was once Sawa Lake, a biodiverse wetland and recreational landmark.
Human activity and climate change have combined to turn the site into a barren wasteland with piles of salt.
Abandoned hotels and tourist facilities here hark back to the 1990s when the salt lake, circled by sandy banks, was in its heyday and popular with newly-weds and families who came to swim and picnic.
But today, the lake near the city of Samawa, south of the capital Baghdad, is completely dry.
Bottles litter its former banks and plastic bags dangle from sun-scorched shrubs, while two pontoons have been reduced to rust.
“This year, for the first time, the lake has disappeared,” environmental activist Husam Subhi said. “In previous years, the water area had decreased during the dry seasons.”
Today, on the sandy ground sprinkled with salt, only a pond remains where tiny fish swim, in a source that connects the lake to an underground water table.
The five-square-kilometer (two-square-mile) lake has been drying up since 2014, says Youssef Jabbar, environmental department head of Muthana province.
The causes have been “climate change and rising temperatures,” he explained.
“Muthana is a desert province, it suffers from drought and lack of rainfall.”
A government statement issued last week also pointed to “more than 1,000 wells illegally dug” for agriculture in the area.
Additionally, nearby cement and salt factories have “drained significant amounts of water from the groundwater that feeds the lake,” Jabbar said.
It would take nothing short of a miracle to bring Sawa Lake back to life.
Use of aquifers would have to be curbed and, following three years of drought, the area would now need several seasons of abundant rainfall, in a country hit by desertification and regarded as one of the five most vulnerable to climate change.
The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, a global treaty, recognized Sawa as “unique... because it is a closed water body in an area of sabkha (salt flat) with no inlet or outlet.
“The lake is formed over limestone rock and is isolated by gypsum barriers surrounding the lake; its water chemistry is unique,” says the convention’s website.
A stopover for migratory birds, the lake was once “home to several globally vulnerable species” such as the eastern imperial eagle, houbara bustard and marbled duck.
Sawa is not the only body of water in Iraq facing the perils of drought.
Iraqi social media is often filled with photos of grotesquely cracked soil, such as in the UNESCO-listed Howeiza marshes in the south, or Razzaza Lake in the central province of Karbala.
In Sawa, a sharp drop in rainfall — now only 30 percent of what used to be normal for the region — has lowered the underground water table, itself drained by wells, said Aoun Dhiab, a senior adviser at Iraq’s water resources ministry.
And rising temperatures have increased evaporation.
Dhiab said authorities have banned the digging of new wells and are working to close illegally-dug wells across the country.
Latif Dibes, who divides his time between his hometown of Samawa and his adopted country of Sweden, has worked for the past decade to raise environmental awareness.
The former driving school instructor cleans up the banks of the Euphrates River and has turned the vast, lush garden of his home into a public park.
He remembers the school trips and holidays of his childhood, when the family would go swimming at Sawa.
“If the authorities had taken an interest, the lake would not have disappeared at this rate. It’s unbelievable,” he said.
“I am 60 years old and I grew up with the lake. I thought I would disappear before it, but unfortunately, it has died before me.”
Overuse and climate change kill off Iraq’s Sawa Lake
https://arab.news/gr6jk
Overuse and climate change kill off Iraq’s Sawa Lake
Oman to host sixth round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and US on Sunday
- Oman’s foreign minister Badr Al-Busaidi makes announcement on the social platform X
DUBAI: There will be a sixth round of negotiations between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program this weekend, Oman’s foreign minister said Thursday.
Badr Al-Busaidi made the announcement on the social platform X.
“I am pleased to confirm the 6th round of Iran US talks will be held in Muscat this Sunday the 15th,” he wrote.
Iran for days had been saying there would be talks, but Oman, which is serving as the mediator, had not confirmed them until now.
There was no immediate comment from the US.
Tensions have been rising over the last day in the region, with the US drawing down the presence of staffers who are not deemed essential to operations in the Middle East and their loved ones due to the potential for regional unrest.
US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says 5 members killed in Hamas attack
- “We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms,” the group said in its statement
WASHINGTON: The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on Wednesday accused militant group Hamas of attacking a bus carrying its staffers to an aid distribution center, saying at least five people were killed and multiple others injured.
The group said in a statement that around 10 p.m. local time (1900 GMT) “a bus carrying more than two dozen members of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation team... were brutally attacked by Hamas.”
“We are still gathering facts, but what we know is devastating: there are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries, and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage,” the statement read.
In an email to AFP the group said all the passengers on the bus were Palestinian and all were aid workers. They were en route to GHF’s distribution center in the area west of Khan Younis.
“We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms,” the group said in its statement. “These were aid workers. Humanitarians. Fathers, brothers, sons and friends, who were risking their lives every day to help others.”
An officially private effort with opaque funding and backed by Israel, GHF began operations on May 26 after Israel completely cut off supplies into Gaza for more than two months, sparking warnings of mass famine.
But GHF’s first week of operations, in which it said it had distributed more than seven million meals’ worth of food, has been marred by criticism.
The Israeli military faces allegations of shooting into crowds of civilians rushing to pick up aid packages near GHF sites.
Israeli authorities and the GHF — which uses contracted US security — denied any such incident took place.
The United Nations and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the foundation over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.
Palestinian boy who lost nine siblings arrives in Italy for treatment
- According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) website, more than 15,000 children have reportedly been killed and over 34,000 injured in almost two years of war in Gaza
MILAN: A group of 17 Palestinian children, including an 11-year-old boy who lost nine siblings in an Israel strike in Gaza last month, arrived in Italy on Wednesday for hospital treatment, accompanied by more than 50 family members.
Adam Al-Najjar, who has multiple fractures, arrived with his mother at Milan’s Linate airport where he was welcomed by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, before being transferred to the city’s Niguarda Hospital.
The plane that landed at Linate carried five other injured Palestinian minors, while 11 more arrived on flights to other Italian airports.
The May 23 attack left Adam in a serious condition at Nasser Hospital, one of the few operational medical facilities in southern Gaza.
Adam “is stable, has a head wound that is healing but his left arm is bad, the bones are fractured and the nerves damaged,” his 36-year-old mother, Alaa Al-Najjar, a paediatrician, told Italian newspaper la Repubblica.
Adam’s father, Hamdi Al-Najjar, who was also a doctor, died a week after the attack.
“The damage is in my left hand, there is a problem with the nerves, I can’t feel my fingers. There’s still a lot of pain,” Adam told Turkish news agency Anadolu.
A total of 70 Palestinians were set to arrive in Italy on three military aircraft that set off from Israel’s Eilat airport, the Italian foreign ministry said earlier on Wednesday.
The patients will be treated at hospitals in numerous cities including Milan, Rome, Florence and Bologna.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) website, more than 15,000 children have reportedly been killed and over 34,000 injured in almost two years of war in Gaza.
Including the latest operation, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government has so far brought 150 injured Palestinians from Gaza to Italy for treatment, the foreign ministry said.
The Italian government has been a staunch supporter of Israel since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas-led militants that killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
In recent months, Rome has criticized the extent of the Israeli response, and expressed concern as the death toll in Gaza has mounted, while declining to apply sanctions.
Italy was not among numerous European Union countries that called last month for a review of EU-Israeli economic and trade relations.
Israel to expel French nationals on Gaza aid boat by end of week
- All 12 of them have been banned from Israel for 100 years
- France and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting a UN meeting later this month in New York on steps toward recognizing a Palestinian state and reaching a so-called two-state solution to the conflict
JERUSALEM: Israel is to expel by the end of the week four French nationals held after security forces intercepted their Gaza-bound aid boat, France’s foreign minister said Wednesday, as an Israeli NGO said one of the French campaigners was briefly put in solitary confinement.
The announcement came as France’s prime minister accused activists aboard the boat — who hoped to raise awareness about the humanitarian situation in war-torn Gaza — of capitalizing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for political attention.
The four, who include Rima Hassan, a member of European Parliament from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party who is of Palestinian descent, will be deported on Thursday and Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X.
They were among 12 people on board the Madleen sailboat which was carrying food and supplies for Gaza before it was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters off the besieged Palestinian territory on Monday.
Four, including two French citizens and Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, agreed to be deported immediately.
The remaining eight were taken into custody after they refused to leave Israel voluntarily, according to Adalah, an Israeli rights NGO representing most of the activists.
All 12 of them have been banned from Israel for 100 years.
Adalah said on Wednesday that Israeli authorities had placed French MEP Hassan and Brazilian activist Thiago Avila in solitary confinement, with Hassan later removed.
“Israeli authorities transferred two of the volunteers — the Brazilian volunteer Thiago Avila and the French-Palestinian European Parliament member Rima Hassan — to separate prison facilities, away from the others, and placed them in solitary confinement,” Adalah said in a statement.
The NGO later said that Hassan had been moved back to Givon prison in Ramla, near Tel Aviv, while Avila remained in isolation.
When asked for comment, Israel’s prison authority referred AFP to the foreign ministry, which said it was checking the reports.
Adalah said Hassan was put in isolation after writing “Free Palestine” on a prison wall.
The NGO said Brazilian activist Avila was placed in isolation “due to his ongoing hunger and thirst strike, which he began two days ago.”
“He has also been treated aggressively by prison authorities, although this has not escalated to physical assault,” it added.
The leader of Hassan’s LFI party in parliament, Mathilde Panot, said France’s prime minister Francois Bayrou had failed to condemn Israel’s actions.
The party’s boss, Jean-Luc Melenchon, accused Bayrou of “abandoning the French prisoners,” and called on President Emmanuel Macron to step in.
“These activists obtained the effect they wanted, but it’s a form of instrumentalization to which we should not lend ourselves,” Bayrou responded in the National Assembly.
It’s “through diplomatic action, and efforts to bring together several states to pressure the Israeli government, that we can obtain the only possible solution” to the conflict, he added.
Foreign Minister Barrot also rejected Panot’s criticism, saying “the admirable mobilization” of French officials had made a rapid resolution of the situation possible “despite the harassment and defamation that they have been subjected to.”
France and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting a UN meeting later this month in New York on steps toward recognizing a Palestinian state and reaching a so-called two-state solution to the conflict.
Israel is facing mounting pressure to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, whose entire population the United Nations has warned is at risk of famine.
Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz on Wednesday called on Egypt to block a hundreds-strong pro-Palestinian activist convoy from reaching Gaza, as the group arrived in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023 attacked Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says the retaliatory Israeli military offensive has killed at least 55,104 people, the majority civilians. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable.
Out of 251 taken hostage during the Hamas attack, 54 are still held in Gaza including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel says bodies of two hostages retrieved from Gaza
- Yair Yaakov was seized in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and killed the same day
JERUSALEM: Israeli forces have retrieved the bodies of two hostages from the Gaza Strip, the military said Wednesday, as Israel presses its offensive in the Palestinian territory.
A military statement said a joint operation by the army and the Shin Bet security agency recovered the bodies of Yair Yaakov and “an additional hostage whose name has not yet been cleared for publication” from the Khan Yunis area of southern Gaza.
Yaakov, a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz, was 59 when he was seized in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and killed the same day.
The military statement said he had been abducted and killed by fighters from Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally.
Yaakov was abducted along with his partner Meirav Tal, as they sheltered in their safe room in Nir Oz.
She was freed on November 28, 2023 during the first truce.
Abducted separately at the home of their mother, Yair’s two children Yagil and Or were also released on November 27 during the first truce.
Nir Oz was one of the communities hit hardest by the attack, with nearly a quarter of its residents killed or taken hostage.
