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Qatar participated in the 31st preparatory meeting of the Electricity and Water Co-operation Committee of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries, held in Kuwait. HE President of Qatar General Electricity and Water Corp (Kahramaa) Eng. Abdulla bin Ali Al Theyab led Qatar's delegation at the meeting. The meeting discussed ways to enhance Gulf integration in the electricity and water sectors, progress on electricity and water interconnection projects, and support for energy efficiency and demand management programs. Governance frameworks and monitoring mechanisms for joint projects were also addressed. HE Eng. Al Theyab affirmed Qatar's commitment to continuing to work with its brothers to develop an integrated Gulf infrastructure that ensures the security and sustainability of supplies and supports the goals of the transition to clean energy.

Palestinians say water shortages are due to settler attacks UN reports increase in settler vandalism of water infrastructure Israeli military acknowledges reports but no suspects identified Israeli agency COGAT blames Palestinian water theft Shortages force reliance on costly deliveriesPalestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank are facing severe water shortages that they say are being driven by increasing attacks on scarce water sources by extremist Jewish settlers.Across the West Bank in Palestinian communities, residents are reporting shortages that have left taps in homes dry and farms without irrigation.In Ramallah, one of the largest Palestinian cities in the West Bank and the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority, residents facing water shortages are now relying on public taps."We only get water at home twice a week, so people are forced to come here," said Umm Ziad, as she filled empty plastic bottles with water alongside other Ramallah residents.The UN recorded 62 incidents of Jewish settlers vandalising water wells, pipelines, irrigation networks and other water-related infrastructure in the West Bank in the first six months of the year.The Israeli military acknowledged it has received multiple reports of Israeli civilians intentionally causing damage to water infrastructure but that no suspects had been identified.Among the targets have been a freshwater spring and a water distribution station in Ein Samiya, around 16km northeast of Ramallah, serving around 20 nearby Palestinian villages and some city neighbourhoods.Settlers have taken over the spring that many Palestinians have used for generations to cool off in the hot summer months.Palestinian public utility Jerusalem Water Undertaking said the Ein Samiya water distribution station had become a frequent target of settler vandalism."Settler violence has escalated dramatically," Abdullah Bairait, 60, a resident of nearby Kfar Malik, standing on a hilltop overlooking the spring."They enter the spring stations, break them, remove cameras, and cut off the water for hours," he said.The Ein Samiya spring and Kfar Malik village have been increasingly surrounded by Jewish Israeli settlements. The UN and most foreign governments consider settlements in the West Bank to be illegal under international law and an obstacle to the establishment of a future Palestinian state.According to the United Nations' humanitarian office, settlers carried out multiple attacks targeting water springs and vital water infrastructure in the Ramallah, Salfit and Nablus areas between June 1 and July 14. The Ein Samiya water spring had been repeatedly attacked, it said in a July report.Israeli security forces view any damage to infrastructure as a serious matter and were carrying out covert and overt actions to prevent further harm, the Israeli military said in response to Reuters questions for this story. It said the Palestinian Water Authority had been given access to carry out repairs.Kareem Jubran, director of field research at Israeli rights group B'Tselem, told Reuters that settlers had taken control over most natural springs in the West Bank in recent years and prevented Palestinians from accessing them.SETTLER VIOLENCEPalestinians have long faced a campaign of intimidation, harassment and physical violence by extremist settlers, who represent a minority of Jewish settlers living in the West Bank. Most live in settlements for financial or ideological reasons and do not advocate for violence against Palestinians.Palestinians say the frequency of settler violence in the West Bank has increased since the October 2023 Hamas storming of Israel.They say they fear the rise in settler violence is part of a campaign to drive them from the land. The UN has registered 925 such incidents in the first seven months of this year, a 16% year-on-year increase.Since the Hamas fighter attacks which sparked the war in Gaza, several Israeli politicians have advocated for Israel to annex the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.Reuters reported on Sunday that Israeli officials said the government is now considering annexing the territory after France and other Western nations said they would recognise a Palestinian state this month. The Palestinian Authority wants a future Palestinian state to encompass West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.Palestinians in the West Bank have long struggled to access water. The Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercises limited civic rule in parts of the territory and relies on Israeli approvals to develop and expand water infrastructure. Palestinian officials and rights groups say that's rarely given.B'Tselem said in an April 2023 report that Palestinians were facing a chronic water crisis, while settlers have an abundance of water."The water shortage in the West Bank is the intentional outcome of Israel's deliberately discriminatory policy, which views water as another means for controlling the Palestinians," B'Tselem wrote in the report.COSTLY DELIVERIESAcross the West Bank, water tanks are common in Palestinian homes, storing rainwater or water delivered by trucks due to an already unreliable piped water network that has been exacerbated by the settler attacks.Cogat, the Israeli military agency that oversees policy in the West Bank and Gaza, said in response to Reuters questions the Palestinian Authority was responsible for supplying water to Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel transferred 90mn cubic metres of water to the Palestinian Authority each year, it said, blaming any shortages on water theft by Palestinians.Along with travelling long distances to collect water, Palestinians have become reliant on costly water deliveries to manage the chronic water crisis that they fear will only grow."If the settlers continue their attacks, we will have conflict on water," said Wafeeq Saleem, who was collecting water from a public tap outside Ramallah."Water is the most important thing for us."

Like his father, Iraqi buffalo herder Watheq Abbas grazes his animals in Iraq's southern wetlands, but with persistent drought shrinking marshland where they feed and decimating the herd, his millennia-old way of life is threatened."There's no more water, the marshes are dead," said 27-year-old Abbas, who has led his buffaloes to pasture in the marshland for the past 15 years."In the past, the drought would last one or two years, the water would return and the marshes would come back to life. Now we've gone without water for five years," the buffalo herder said.This year has been one of the driest since 1933, authorities have said, with summer temperatures topping 50C across Iraq, which is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.The Unesco-listed swamplands in the country's south — where tradition has it that the Garden of Eden was located have sustained civilisations dating back to ancient Mesopotamia.But the unrelenting dry spell has reduced the mythical waterways to a barren land of cracked earth, stripped of the slender reeds that once dominated the landscape.Abbas and tens of thousands of Iraqis like him who rely on the marshes — livestock herders, hunters and fishermen — have watched helplessly as their source of livelihood evaporated.At the Chibayish marshes, scarce water still fills some channels, which authorities have deepened so that animals like Abbas's 25 buffaloes could cool off.For years, he and his herd have been on the move, heading wherever there was still water, in Chibayish or in the neighbouring province of Missan.'BATTLE FOR WATER' But it has become an increasingly challenging feat. Last year, seven of his animals died.Just recently Abbas lost another of his buffaloes which drank stagnant, brackish water that he said had "poisoned it".The drought has been brought about by declining rainfall and soaring temperatures that increase evaporation.But upstream dams built in Turkiye and in Iran have dramatically reduced the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq and exacerbated the effects of climate change.With the Iraqi government forced to ration water supply to ensure the country's 46mn people have enough to drink and to meet agricultural needs, the marshes appear to be at the bottom of their priorities."There's a battle for water" in Iraq, said environmental activist Jassim al-Assadi, from the Nature Iraq NGO.He was among a group of activists and engineers who two decades ago sought to re-flood 5,600 square kilometres of marshland.They were part of the areas that Saddam Hussein's government had drained in the 1990s to chase out militants sheltering there.Today, only 800 square kilometres of the marshes are submerged, Assadi said, with many residents leaving the dried-up region.The ecosystem of the marshes is also suffering irreversible damage, with turtles, otters and migratory birds among the victims."We used to have 48 species of fish but now only four remain, and from 140 species of wild birds we are now down to 22," said veterinarian Wissam al-Assadi.'WE HAVE NOTHING ELSE' In collaboration with a French agriculture and veterinarian NGO, he helps treat the buffaloes, which in summer typically need TO be in the water for 14 hours a day and drink dozens of litres to avoid heat exhaustion.But the reduced water flow means "the water does not renew, and salinity and pollution levels increase," the veterinarian explained."Animals that used to weigh 600 kilos are now 400 or 300 kilos, their immune systems weaken and diseases multiply," he added.The Mesopotamian water buffaloes now produce one-third of their usual output of milk, which is used to make cheese and geymar, a thick clotted cream that is a popular breakfast food in Iraq.A UN report issued in July warned that "without urgent conservation measures", the buffalo population was "at risk of extinction".Citing water scarcity as the cause, it said their numbers in the marshes have gone from 309,000 in 1974 to just 40,000 in 2000.Towayeh Faraj, 50, who has lived in the hamlet of Hassja in Chibayish for the past two years, said he has been wandering the marshes for three decades to find water for his buffaloes."If the livestock is alive, so are we," he said."We have nothing else: no salary, no jobs, no state support." He has 30 animals — down from the 120 he began his career with, selling many off one-by-one to buy fodder for the remaining herd.Faraj inherited the profession from his father, but the family tradition might end with him. His eldest of 16 children works for a Chinese oil company, and another is a minibus driver.

Using a crutch to bear her weight, 85-year-old Molly Aluoch trudges from her mud-walled room on the outskirts of a sprawling Nairobi slum, shouldering a sack of used plastic to exchange for a shower or a safe toilet.For the 31 years she has lived in Kibera, Kenya's largest informal settlement, water and sanitation have remained scarce and costly — often controlled by cartels who charge residents prices beyond their means.The Human Needs Project (HNP) seeks to mitigate that. Residents can trade discarded plastic for "green points", or credits, they can redeem for services such as drinking water, toilets, showers, laundries and even meals."With my green points, I can now access a comfortable and clean toilet and bathroom any time of the day," Aluoch said.Before, she would spend 10 shillings (eight US cents) to use a toilet and another 10 for a bathroom, a significant chunk from the residents' average daily income, 200 to 400 shillings, before food and housing costs."It meant that without money, I would not use a toilet," she said.Unable to use Kibera's pit latrines owing to her frailty meant she would have to resort to "unhygienic means".Now, that money goes towards food for her three grandchildren.Aluoch, a traditional birth attendant, is among some 100 women who collect plastics for green points, helping them access water, sanitation, and hygiene services.She takes her plastic to a centre 200 metres from her home, where one kilogramme of recyclable plastics earns 15 green points, equivalent to 15 shillings.The project serves some 800 residents daily, allowing them access to modern bathrooms, clean water and menstrual hygiene facilities — services that are out of reach for many Kibera households.Since 2015, the project has distributed more than 50 mn litres of water and more than 1mn toilet and shower uses.In 2024 alone, it distributed 11mn litres of water and enabled 124,000 bathroom and toilet uses.'DAYS WITHOUT WATER'With water a scarce commodity in Kibera, it is common for vendors to create artificial shortages to inflate prices, forcing residents to pay more than 10 times the normal price.The city's water service charges between $0.60 and $0.70 per cubic metre for connected households, but by comparison, Kibera residents have to stump up as much as $8 to $19 for the same amount."Getting water was hard. We could go several days without water," said Margaret John, 50, a mother of three.Today, her reality is different."The water point is at my doorstep. The supply is steady and the water is clean. All I need is to collect plastics, get points, redeem and get water," she said.John, who has lived in Kibera for nine years, says the project has been a game changer, especially for women and girls."Access to proper sanitation services guarantees women and girls their dignity during menstruation." Now, with 10 water points spread across Kibera — pulled from a borehole with a daily capacity of half a million litres — NHP shields some residents from informal vendors' exploitative pricing.The project's dual mission is to meet basic human needs while tackling Kibera's mounting waste problem.HNP's director of strategic partnerships Peter Muthaura said it helps to improve health and the daily living conditions in Kibera."When people cannot access dignified toilets and bathrooms, the environment bears the impact," he said.It also fosters development, he said.In the first quarter of 2025 alone, Kibera residents delivered two tonnes of recyclable plastic, with around 250 women directly engaged in daily collection and delivery.For Aluoch, every sack of plastics and every green point earned goes beyond clean water and sanitation: it restores a sense of dignity."My prayer is that this project spreads to every corner of Kibera, and reaches thousands of women whose dignity has been robbed by a lack of sanitation services," she said.