NEWSRAEL: In the last days, the Euphrates was in the news, when PM Netanyahu mentioned "Greater Israel". All of the sudden, Muslims cared about the river, but don't care that the drying up of the river could kill millions.
The Euphrates River, once one of the great lifelines of the Middle East, is now in crisis. Its waters have sustained civilizations for thousands of years, but today, the river is drying up at alarming speed. Climate change, rising temperatures, and reduced rainfall have combined with extensive dam-building upstream in Turkey to cut the flow dramatically.
The result is an environmental and humanitarian disaster that extends across Iraq and Syria, where millions depend on the river for drinking water, farming, and electricity.
In Iraq, the Ministry of Water Resources has warned that the country could lose most of the Euphrates within two decades if current trends continue. Farmers have already abandoned fertile lands as irrigation channels run dry. In Syria, where the river passes through war-torn regions, shortages worsen an already fragile humanitarian situation, leaving communities without reliable access to food and clean water. Power plants that rely on the river’s flow are producing less electricity, compounding economic hardship.
