Some small reservoirs but still no dams at all.

Mr. Edmonson shows us some small reservoirs or Limams in the Negev, he is willing to admit that they would not be viable to have flooded Gaza. His focus then turns to the Israeli water carrier, to the reservoir at Nir Am, and to a reference in the book, Water and Peace in the Middle East, edited by J. Isaac and H. Shuval, to dams built in “Wadi Gaza”. What is missing is any bit of proof or evidence of any sort that the water is of sufficient amount to have been used to flood Gaza to the level seen — 3 meters according to a UNWRA official.

The picture he provides of the Nir Am reservoir at the top of the article show it to be seemingly at a level with Gaza, possibly even slightly lower, which raises the first important question, how did the water, even if the whole reservoir was emptied at once, all flow towards the desired location in Gaza? After all, the natural tendency of water would be spreading out to the widest possible area, to say nothing of much of it being lost to absorption by the ground, which is dry in that area. There is no indication of any construction to direct the water, nor any evidence of earth works to create a funnel to direct the water, nor is there any evidence of the construction crews which would have had to work to destroy such evidence. Not one journalist, including the Arab journalists living in Israel, attempted to go down to the area, which is open to anyone with a car, even attempted to look for any such evidence.

However, that does not stop Mr. Edmondson from asking “Was a means of diverting water from the Nir Am Reservoir into Gaza built into the system when it was constructed, or, alternately, has one been added since?” The picture shows an earthen wall around the dam, with no openings to be seen. Nonetheless, he goes further and asks, did someone from Sderot “slip out during the Alexa downpour to pull the switch, open the floodgate, and release the tide?” He claims that it is probably impossible for us to know this, but the truth is that he does not even know if there is a floodgate. This is an accusation without any basis. Reservoirs which are not near or on the rivers that create them, and which are therefore not in danger of being flooded by those rivers, do not typically have floodgates. In a desert, where a reservoir is used to pool water from small sources, or from periodic and brief rainfall, typically there are no floodgates as well.

Mr. Edmondson mentions the dams built into Wadi Gaza. However, there is no link to any picture of it, nor can I find any river or image of a structure that would be a dam capable of storing enough water to suddenly flood Gazan neighborhoods in the manner described. Even if there was a large enough ‘earth dam’ to be capable of storing that amount of water, how would the sudden rush of water from HaBesor Stream (the location that Google maps depics as the site of Wadi Gaza) go to Gaza without also flooding or washing away the Israeli neighborhoods of Ein Habesor, Magen, Nir Oz, Nirim, Ein Hashlosha and Reim? There is no attempt made to explain how these dams in Wadi Gaza would accomplish anything remotely like what is claimed, but their very existence is seeminly proof enough for the author.

Nor has Mr . Edmondson offered anything that might be a shred of evidence that there is an opening on the Israeli water carrier which would be capable of both flooding any portion of Gaza and yet remaining completely invisible to detection. Even if this was done in the rain, the output pipe would have to be enourmous, and even if it were buried underground and somehow remotely controlled from a distance, its use would leave a massive hole in the earth from the water coming out, and the area nearby would also show damage from the rushing water. Any trees or grasses would be washed away by fast moving waters of that magnitude, even substantial amounts of earth would be displaced. However, with all this potential evidence around, not a single photograph, video or even visual witness has been found.

Most of the ‘proofs’ of this article are insinuations. Just the fact that the word “dam” appears connected to anything in the area is used as a point. For example, despite the fact that Mr. Edmonson acknowledges that the small Negev reservoirs known as limams are not realistically capable of creating such a flood in Gaza, he still eagerly notes that each limam has a dam. The fact that the dam is only for diverting water to the limam/reservoir does not seem to matter. If the reservoir is so small that it could not have been caused such a flood, then the dam that fed it surely is not capable either.

Mr Edmonson shares this little tidbit as proof of Israel’s undoubted guilt. “Here’s Jabaliya on Google Maps. Move the map southeast by northeast and you will see the other three reservoirs. Note that all three lie in fairly close proximity to Jabaliya.” Close proximity? With the map set to have 1 inch equal 1 mile, the closest reservoir was 3 miles away. None of the three reservoirs has even close to the volume of the reservoir at Nir Am, and even if all three and Nir Am were to have opened up all at once, there is hardly enough water in them to flood an area of 1 square mile even an inch of water. The picture at the top of the article shows an image of the Nir Am reservoir, angled so that it seemingly dwarfs the city of Beit Hanoun, but in reality the reservoir is just over 1,000 feet in diameter, and it is over a mile away from the city.

If one follows the equations that are used to measure rainfall using a rain gauge, the results are that a single square mile of land would need 17,378,743 gallons of water to be flooded to the level of a single inch. Over 17 million gallons of water. Converted to liters, this would mean that to flood that area would need roughly 64,000,000 liters of water. The Nir Am reservoir, clearly the largest one in the area, contains approximately 1,500,000 liters of water, which is roughly around 3% of all the water that would be needed to flood a town about one square mile one inch high, even without consider water being lost in the area between the reservoirs and the towns he claims they could be used to flood. Nonetheless, Mr. Edmondson sees no problem in suggesting that were the water for these reservoirs diverted the flooding could reach “40–50 cm” or 16–19 inches. How can an amount of water, barely 3% of the amount needed to flood a one square mile area, flood a larger area 16 inches deep when it is not even enough to flood that same area 1 inch deep?

In order for Mr. Edmondson’s accusations to be remotely true, there would need to be a dam or reservoir over 200 times the volume of the Nir Am reservoir. Nowhere in the does any such reservoir or river capable of supplying such a reservoir or dam exist.

It does not matter that a local woman says that dams opened. Did she see dams or reservoir of the size needed to create such flooding? It does not matter if the local Arab newspapers and television shows declare that dams opened. Has any reporter seen any dams or reservoir of the size needed to create such flooding over such a substantial area? No. Yes, there are small dams in the Negev. For anyone to say that there are “No dams at all” is incorrect. However, that does not validate the belief that Israel opened dams and flooded Gazan cities. The reality is that there are no dams which could have created such flooding, not even close to it, despite all of Mr . Edmondson’s quoting of texts and posting of images.

This whole article is full of assertions based on partial facts, accusations without any facts to support them, and insinuations. Mr. Edmondson disdainfully uses the word “hasbara” to imply Israeli misinformation. However, there is also a word for the misinformation created by the Arab world. It is “Pallywood”. This article is a wonderful example of a pallywood production.