(GAZA) — In Deir Al-Balah, a city in the Gaza Strip, Marwa Al-Hasanat has found a way to bring some joy to her community amid the destruction and hardship of war in the form of a roadside bookstore.
Al-Hasanat, 22, a lifelong lover of books inspired by her grandfather who authored three of his own on the Arabic language, started an online bookstore in June 2022 called Marwa.Book. But since the war began on Oct. 7, Al-Hasanat has not been able to purchase books to sell online from Gaza City, where she used to get her supply. The intermittent internet connection throughout the current war has also left her online bookstore inoperable.
Al-Hasanat told ABC News she has experienced her own tragedies in the current conflict.
After a bombing in November hit the house adjacent to hers, her father was killed, she said. Al-Hasanat was trapped under rubble for 15 minutes, she said. Ultimately she was able to escape and survived; she said in an interview with ABC News.
“During the war, what does not kill us makes us stronger. Since I emerged from under the rubble for about 15 minutes, I was saying that I am still alive, but no one hears me or knows about me. After they took me out [of the rubble], I felt that I had a mission and a purpose in this world. I was not killed because of the bombing. So I have a goal,” Al-Hasanat said.
Al-Hasanat said she had a newfound determination. Despite losing her father, she wanted to continue to pursue and share her love and passion for books. If she could not sell her books online, she decided she would start selling them in the street.
Enlisting the help of her cousin Abdul Hakim, she set up a modest stand amidst the street noise filled with displaced people, aiming to support her family after her father’s death and to continue spreading the culture she deeply cherished.
Al-Hasanat has seen a positive reaction from her community to the roadside bookstore, she said.
“The community is very interactive with the library because they want to read and learn. We spread culture, and they change their mood by reading. They feel that they are on a journey and challenge motives and war. We are an educated society. It is truly interactive,” Al-Hasanat told ABC News.
The community’s response to Al-Hasanat’s street bookstore was overwhelmingly positive, she said.
Hiba Al-Za’anin, who was displaced from Beit Hanoun to Deir Al-Balah, said that she was grateful for the presence of the bookstore, and Al-Hasanat’s idea in the street, especially after she bought the novel “Anne of Green Gables.”
A displaced person from Gaza City lost his wife in a bombing there, he told ABC News. His wife loved reading, he said, so he is grateful that he’s been able to continue his wife’s reading journey by buying books and novels from Al-Hasanat.
“Reading books motivates people … provides food for the soul, and also motivates them for the future,” Hakim told ABC News.
Even though there are challenges to running her roadside bookstore – there is a constant fear of danger, and bombings could start at any minute – she believes the books are “sending a message.”
“I am sending a message to everyone in society to read, look for a new life in books, instead of the life we live, we are looking for a semblance of life. If you read, you will find a lot of life in books,” Al-Hasanat said.
(LVIV, Ukraine) — Col. Oleh Avtomeenko was wounded while performing a combat mission in Donetsk region, on the first days of the Russian full-scale invasion in late February 2022, and lost his eyesight.
And now, after 20 years in Ukrainian Army, he has to say goodbye to it and learn how to move on in complete darkness. But he refused to surrender.
“When you are a military, you understand why that happened to you — because you connected your work, your profession with a certain risk for your life and health — it was your conscious choice of yours,” said Avtomeenko, 46.
The former deputy commander of a mechanized brigade said he feels sorry for civilians who have nothing to do with army, but who have also lost their eyesight during the Russian war against Ukraine.
“First six months I was completely devastated, it couldn’t be any worse, thinking that life is over, my military career is over, all my plans for the future are ruined and I have lost everything,” Avtomeenko said.
The next six months were a period of acceptance for him, as he realized what happened to him and there was nothing that could be done to change it.
No wonder that Avtomeenko became one of the five first students of “Touch Point,” a project initiated by Ukrainian Ministry of Education, the NGO Public Health Alliance and the Lviv Educational and Rehabilitation Center “Levenya.”
During two weeks of its first phase this March, four veterans and one civilian woman learned how to navigate in space without eyesight, including cooking and working with computers and smartphones. Avtomeenko traveled to Lviv to participate.
“The state did not manage to build a solid, flexible and organized system in order to help people who have sacrificed their health during this war,” explained Vira Remazhevska, the co-organizer of the courses and the founder of the first in Ukraine educational and rehabilitation center, “Levenya.”
The president of the nongovernmental group Association of Special and Inclusive Education Workers insists that from the very beginning of the war, when Russian forces entered Crimea in 2014, this problem has unfortunately become a matter of concern mostly for NGOs.
“One of our goals was not only to help particular people but also to try to shape and formulate such kind of social service in the country,” said Remazhevska.
Long before the project started, Remazhevska and her team were helping the veterans, consulting with them at first via the phone, providing them with psychological support. They taught them how to deal with basic needs, for instance, how to brush their teeth by putting the toothpaste not on the toothbrush but directly on the teeth.
This March, on the premises of the local professional college of hotel, tourist and restaurant service in Lviv, the participants of the project learned not only how to use laptop, cellphone and other digital gadgets, but also how to cook and how to walk using the white cane.
“It is supposed to become the extension of their hand and actual substitute of their vision – indoors and outdoors,” Remazhevska said.
In her opinion, “A spatial orientation instructor who teaches a person to walk is responsible for his life, because he must teach him first of all safety.”
After the first stage of the project, Remazhevska noticed that people who have lost their eyesight as a result of injury often suffer from severe concussions.
According to her, the rehabilitators are also dealing with massive psychological problems not only of the veterans but also of their families’ members: “This is a tragedy of a whole family, a tragedy of relationships, when a person who was the support, the backbone of the family, suddenly becomes a helpless person.”
“I am a living proof that one can live despite blindness — I think that is the best example we can provide in order to push people for further development,” says Volodymyr Pyrig, 35, a journalist and blind trainer at the program.
Pyrig, who has been blind since birth, has for years has been serving as a translator of many programs for the blind into Ukrainian, in particular – a program that allows blind people to work freely with a computer.
During the 10 days Pyrig worked with three veterans.
“At first, the guys just needed more communication with other blind people – they asked me a lot of questions not related directly to the training,” Pyrig said.
“On the one hand, they already knew how to clean the apartment and do other stuff at home, but, on the other hand, they were not ready to go shopping or to cook. I shared with them some basic knowledge to let them use and multiply it.”
According to Pyrig, Avtomeenko managed to be very quick in terms of orientation, learning how to work independently and now he works on the computer with relative confidence –from time-to-time reaching out to Pyrig with some additional questions.
Another veteran, Anton Bohach, a volunteer and former truck driver from Kropyvnytskyi, learned how to use a smartphone but said he was not ready to deal with the computer, explaining that he doesn’t feel a proper push to start working in this direction.
“Maybe, it is a matter of some psychological implications, as he has lost his vision only in September last year — roughly speaking, not enough time passed since then at the moment,” Pyrig said. Due to his observations, Those who lost their sight earlier in life often behaved more confidently, were more relaxed, more open, he said.
The third veteran, Denys Abdulin, also a volunteer and former boxer from Bila Tserkva, already knows what he wants to do. as He said he plans to become a professional masseur.
In Pyrig’s opinion, the Ukrainian society is reacting better to the needs of the blind people but there is still some discrimination left — especially in terms of labor.
“In the majority of cases there is a prejudice that if you are blind, it automatically means that you are not going to make it, you are incapable of doing some job,” he said. “There is even no chance to try through the internship – in order take your chance to prove that you actually can.”
The training made a difference for Avtomeenko, who said, “It was great – after the first two or three days I understood that with this (blindness) you can live and live coolly setting no limits for yourself.”
The common day for Avtomeenko starts with workout, shower, shaving, coffee and feeding the cats. And then he normally spends the rest of his time on his laptop working with his channel on Telegram.
“At first, I planned to work on the blog about the life with blindness, common questions and problems to resolve, how to live in the city and use some social establishments for physically impaired people,” Avtomeenko said.
Then he added some military analytics and other news from Ukraine, but after complete mastering the laptop he plans to dedicate his work to other blind people: “To tell them more about technologies, gadgets and applications that can simplify or comfort their lives.”
He is sharing his videos through his video blog, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube — letting people know what the life of a blind person looks like: “I work mostly on the laptop, listen to some content on YouTube, and learn English or Polish languages through the audio lessons as I need to develop myself – there is no point in being stuck in the moment.”
Avtomeenko says his own motto is his personal message to other veterans who have lost their eyesight or limbs: “Do not stop. I know, that this is hard. I have been there myself. Nothing is impossible – if someone else made it, you can make it as well and if no one made it – you can be the first one to do that.”
By the end of these two weeks of rehabilitation, Avtomeenko said, he became more self-sufficient, more autonomous, learned how to walk, how to do many other things.
He remembers, that some of the veterans were saying that it would be better if they had lost the leg instead of their eyes being damaged: “It makes no sense to compare someone’s else story with your own or try to understand how it is to be in other’s shoes – everybody is living their unique story, you just have to overcome it and accept it as it is.”
Remazhevska said that not all young men who have lost their eyesight are willing to participate as there are several factors — previously gained negative experience of rehabilitation in medical facilities, loss of self-confidence and loss of trust to the state.
“Some are just doing nothing, staying at their homes making no efforts, and some are just too tired to search the truth,” she said.
But Remazhevska insisted that even two weeks can make a difference for some severely wounded veterans and civilians as they may gain a lot. She cited Lyudmyla, a woman from Vyshgorod and the only civilian participant of the course, saying, “I have spent 18 months in darkness, in the dark pit, and these two weeks became the brightest period in my life.”
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. military is once again suspending operations of its pier off Gaza, temporarily moving the floating structure to an Israeli port to ride out high seas and rough waves expected to hit the region in coming days, officials said Friday.
It’s the latest setback for the ambitious $230 million humanitarian project involving 1,000 US troops and the third time in a month that military officials have had to halt aid deliveries via the pier due to weather.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees forces in the region, said relocating the pier was necessary to prevent damage to the structure.
“The decision to temporarily relocate the pier is not made lightly but is necessary to ensure the temporary pier can continue to deliver aid in the future,” CENTCOM tweeted late Friday. “After the period of expected high seas, the pier will be rapidly re-anchored to the coast of Gaza and resume delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
Complicating the matter is that humanitarian aid that has been transported ashore via the pier is being held at a nearby facility after the United Nations suspended deliveries last week due to security concerns. The U.N. said Friday it does not have a timeline for when distribution might resume.
The difficulties come as time is running out for the U.S. to make use of the temporary pier, which was initially slated as a 90-day project that would likely lose its ability to transit aid at the end of August, when heightened sea levels and more frequent storms would force military officials to take it down.
Announced by President Joe Biden in his State of the Union address in March, the project was supposed to bring some two million meals a day into hunger-stricken Gaza while Israeli officials held up aid trucks at ground crossings, citing security concerns that some of the aid could reach Hamas.
CENTCOM on Friday said that more than 3,500 metric tons of humanitarian aid have been delivered via the pier so far, with about 1,000 tons of that delivered in the past two days.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that much of that aid hasn’t made it to its distribution points. Still, they say the pier has been key in moving ashore much-needed aid that wouldn’t otherwise arrive and is intended to augment, not replace, aid moving via ground crossings.
While it’s the third time the U.S. military has paused shipments coming across the pier, it’s the second time the system – called Joint Logistics over the Shore, or JLOTS – has been relocated. The first time the pier was relocated, it had broken apart in rough weather and needed repairs. This time, the pier is being disassembled and moved as a precautionary measure to prevent damage.
The sputtering start has riled Republican critics who have called the pier an impractical political endeavor, rather than a serious foreign aid program.
“So far, the only accomplishment has been an increase in cost and risk for the 1,000 U.S. deployed troops,” tweeted Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
GOP Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, this week called the project an “irresponsible pier experiment” that needs to be “immediately terminated before catastrophe occurs.”
Citing the three service members who were injured while working on the pier, along with damaged Army vessels that ran aground, Rogers called it a waste of money and “an embarrassment for the administration.”
“This operation has failed and was never based in reality,” he said in a statement.
The Pentagon has defended the program as necessary to address a dire humanitarian situation.
“It’s pretty important for the people that are suffering right now … to get whatever aid they can by whatever means,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters in May when the pier was temporarily inoperable. “If you want to characterize it as a failure, I leave it to you. What I can tell you is that we don’t control the weather.”
(GREECE) — Greek officials are looking for an American tourist who went missing this week while they were visiting an island off the coast, just days after another U.S. tourist went missing while vacationing nearby.
The unidentified missing man was last seen Tuesday at a tavern in Mathraki, located west of Corfu Island, where he was staying with a Greek American friend, investigators told ABC News.
The friend called the police after he returned home Thursday and found the door of the house open, the lights on, the air conditioning unit on, but the missing American’s ID and travel documents gone, along with the man himself, according to investigators.
Mathraki has no police station or coast guard so officers from Corfu had to be called in to assist with the investigation.
Mathraki only has 40-50 permanent residents in the winter, and many Greek Americans spend their summers there, according local officials.
Search and rescue teams were in the water Thursday but paused their operations Friday due to rough weather, officials said. The search is planned to continue Saturday.
The unidentified man’s disappearance happened the same week that another American tourist was reported missing while visiting a Greek island.
Albert Calibet, 59, a former Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputy, failed to return from a hike on the island of Amorgos Tuesday.
Calibet, who m friend said had experience hiking in the area, reportedly began his hike at 7 a.m. local time on Tuesday and was last seen at 11 a.m. by walkers he met with on a trail, according to Greece’s national Hellenic Police.
Greece is experiencing a heat wave this week, during which temperatures have soared to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
(GREECE) — A search and rescue operation is underway for a 59-year-old American who was reported missing Tuesday after failing to return from a hike on a Greek island.
Albert Calibet, a former Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputy, failed to return from a hike on the Greek island Amorgos amid extreme heat, with temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. He was hiking from Aegiali toward Katapola, which takes roughly four hours.
Calibet reportedly began his hike at 7 a.m. local time on Tuesday and was last seen at 11 a.m. by walkers he met with on a trail, according to Hellenic Police.
A woman who runs a small refreshment stand told police she saw him around 11 a.m. on Tuesday, supplying him with water and refreshments.
He was due to meet with a friend between noon and 1 p.m. at the end of a trail, but Calibet never made it to the meetup point, Hellenic Police said.
The friend tried calling Calibet on his phone, but there was no answer, so the friend reported him missing to local authorities.
Calibet has reportedly visited the island many times and knows the trail and area very well.
A Hellenic Fire Department helicopter and a drone are aiding in an aerial search for Calibet in ravines and areas that are not walkable, while rescue teams have already walked the trail twice, according to police.
Locals who know the rugged terrain well, including shepherds, are all involved. The search was described as “extensive,” with the operation shifting focus beyond the trail now that it has been thoroughly checked, Kalliopi Despotidl, the deputy mayor of Amogros island, told ABC News.
Landscape varies around the trail where Calibet went missing, with some rocky cliffs and gorges, according to Despotidl.
“The terrain is not flat. The trail from Aegiali to Katapola is marked and well-trodden. But he might have gone off the marked area, and that is why they have expanded their search,” Despotidl said.
The deputy mayor also said Calibet is well known on the island, saying she’s seen him coming to Amorgos for at least 10 years. He’s a regular visitor and loves hiking. “He knows the paths better than me,” she said.
Calibet joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in 1998 and has continued to be a part-time employee since he retired in 2018, according to the department.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Deputy Calibet’s family and friends and our hope is that we can bring him home safely,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna. “We are actively collaborating with multiple agencies abroad to provide assistance in the search for Deputy Calibet and will use every resource we have available to bring him back to those who love him.”
The brother of the missing American, Oliver Calibet, and the missing American’s girlfriend, Debbie LaShane, arrived in Greece on Friday to help in the search and rescue efforts for Albert Calibet.
LaShane and Albert Calibet talked on the phone just before he set out on his trek Tuesday morning, LaShane told ABC News.
“He called me right before he was leaving for the hike. … It was 7:07 [a.m.] in Greece, and then we spoke six minutes, and then he sent me a picture at 9:20 [a.m.] at the trail head with the sign. And we have not spoken since,” LaShane said.
It’s been “excruciating; awful. Walking around in a daze, sick to our stomachs knowing that he’s out there somewhere,” LaShane said.
“Time is of the essence because it’s on the fourth day, so it’s not good. But, we’re very positive,” Oliver Calibet said.
(GAZA) — In Israel, right-wing settlers question the delivery of aid to Gazans, while Israeli peace activists advocate for the passage of aid trucks.
A Palestinian truck driver is back on the road delivering flour, sugar and salt to Gaza after being attacked by right-wing Israeli settlers last month.
Tamer Muhtaseb and his partners were attempting to deliver much-needed goods at the Tarqumiya checkpoint between the West Bank and Israel, when he was assaulted, according to Muhtaseb, by Israeli settlers who he says sabotaged his truck by throwing bags of flour onto the road.
“They forced us to get out of the car, they started to throw the aids, if I got close to the car, they would hit me,” Muhtaseb said. “If you say any word they beat you; they handcuffed me.”
The Israel Defense Forces has told ABC News that they condemn attacks on truck drivers.
Before aid reaches Gaza, it changes hands multiple times. Muhtaseb and the other Palestinian drivers line up their vehicles at the last checkpoint in the West Bank before transferring their goods onto Israeli trucks for transportation through Israel.
The trucks are supposed to reach one of the five gate crossings from Israel to Gaza, but even then they face more protests.
ABC News got a chance to speak with a woman settler at the Tarqumiya checkpoint who said she is trying to block the aid from going to the hands of Hamas.
“The people who receive this food, they raped and murdered our children, and we should not give them food,” the unidentified woman said. “This money today finances Hamas in Gaza.”
She also said, “It’s not hate, and the settlers don’t hate them. Rather, it’s the opposite. The settlers want to live in peace.”
Many Israelis believe that some of the aid Gazans receive is stolen by Hamas, something aid groups deny.
Since the start of the war, the issue of aid has been deeply divisive and highly politicized. Aid groups say that Israel could be doing far more to ensure that desperately needed aid is reaching Gaza. Israeli peace activist Alon Lee Green is advocating for the passage of aid.
“We’ve been witness to so many escalating attacks here,” Green said. “We’ve seen those right-wing attacking the trucks. They even set trucks on fire. Sent two Palestinian drivers to the hospital. It’s a fight over the soul of our own society.”
UN agencies are sounding the alarm over high starvation levels, especially in the northern part of the strip.
The UN World Food Program has paused its distribution of humanitarian aid from an American-built pier off Gaza due to safety concerns following one of the deadliest days of the war. It’s the latest setback for the $300 million pier, which had only just returned to operation after being damaged by rough seas.
However, Israel insists that enough aid is being authorized for delivery and that aid groups are the ones creating logistical challenges that result in a bottleneck.
“I’ve been working in Palestine for five years,” Andrea de Domenico, head of the UN Humanitarian Office, said. “And I’ve gone through three wars in Gaza and constant problems and situations in the West Bank. And I learned that everything is politicized in this place. I’m pretty much convinced that there is an intent to set us up for failure.”
Some aid groups argue that land routes are the most efficient way to deliver aid. Although settler disruptions may not significantly impact aid delivery to Gaza, peace activists like Green patrol the area to ensure that aid faces one less hurdle on its journey to the people of Gaza.
Green was asked if it feels like they are screaming into a void.
“In the first weeks and months of the war, because we felt very isolated and very alone and attacked from every direction,” Green said. “But more and more forces are joining us in the call for a ceasefire, in the call for humanizing all the people that live here.”
“People that have been killed in Gaza are not bringing us more safety,” Green said. “And seeing people starving in Gaza is just something that will create more violence that not only Palestinians will pay the price of, but also Israelis will be hurt. I mean, we are bound to somehow live on this land together.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that mediators will keep working to finalize a ceasefire deal after Hamas proposed changes to a U.S.-backed plan. Some proposed changes were considered “workable,” while others were not.
A view damaged floating pier, set up by US to facilitate quicker delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians, after it has been suspended due to adverse weather conditions and rising sea levels in Gaza City, Gaza on May 27, 2024. (Photo by Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. military is planning to suspend operations to its temporary pier off Gaza on Friday, temporarily moving the structure to an Israeli port to ride out high seas and rough waves expected to hit the region in coming days, according to an official.
It’s the third time in a month that the structure has been deemed inoperable due to weather and the latest setback for the ambitious $230 million humanitarian project involving 1,000 US troops.
“We are doing everything we can to make it work,” the official said.
The difficulties come as time is running out for the U.S. to make use of the pier, which was initially slated as a 90-day project that would likely lose its ability to transit aid at the end of August when heightened sea levels and more frequent storms would force military officials to take it down.
Announced by President Joe Biden in his State of the Union in March, the project was supposed to bring some 2 million meals a day into hunger-stricken Gaza while Israeli officials held up aid trucks at ground crossings, citing security concerns that some of the aid could reach Hamas.
More than 2,500 metric tons of humanitarian aid have been delivered via the pier so far. But U.S. officials acknowledged that much of that aid hasn’t made it to its distribution points.
The U.N. said it suspended deliveries last week entirely due to nearby Israeli military operations that posed security concerns. The U.N. has not said when distribution might resume.
CNN first reported the U.S. military’s plans to move the pier to Ashdod on Friday. It will be the second time the pier has had to be relocated due to weather; the first time, the pier broke apart and had to be repaired. This time, the pier is being moved as a precautionary measure to prevent the temporary floating pier from breaking apart in bad weather.
(GREECE) — A search and rescue operation is underway for a 59-year-old American who was reported missing Tuesday after failing to return from a hike on a Greek island.
Albert Calibet, a former LA Sheriff’s Department deputy, failed to return from a hike on the Greek island Amorgos amid extreme heat, with temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. He was hiking from Aegiali toward Katapola, which takes roughly four hours.
Calibet reportedly began his hike at 7 a.m. local time on Tuesday and was last seen at 11 a.m. by walkers he met with on a trail, according to Hellenic Police.
A woman who runs a small refreshment stand told police she saw him around 11 a.m. on Tuesday, supplying him with water and refreshments.
He was due to meet with a friend between noon and 1 p.m. at the end of a trail, but Calibet never made it to the meetup point, Hellenic Police said.
The friend tried calling Calibet on his phone, but there was no answer, so the friend reported him missing to local authorities.
Calibet has reportedly visited the island many times and knows the trail and area very well.
A Hellenic Fire Department helicopter and a drone are aiding in an aerial reach for Calibet in ravines and areas that are not walkable, while rescue teams have already walked the trail twice, according to police.
Calibet has been a member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department since 1998 and has continued to be a part-time employee since he retired in 2018, according to the department.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Deputy Calibet’s family and friends and our hope is that we can bring him home safely,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna.”We are actively collaborating with multiple agencies abroad to provide assistance in the search for Deputy Calibet and will use every resource we have available to bring him back to those who love him.”
(GREECE) — A sweltering heat wave in Greece, recorded as the season’s earliest-ever, has prompted authorities to close public schools, limit outdoor attractions and release safety alerts.
Primary schools and kindergartens closed Wednesday and Thursday in areas of Greece where temperatures sustained heat wave levels and soared well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (exceeding 40 degrees Celsius) across the country, according to officials.
The Greek Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Ministry sent out a notice about the heat and the decision was made with the regional authorities and the municipalities.
Schools are set to reopen on Friday, which marks the last day of the academic year for many public schools in the country, officials said.
The Athens Acropolis, the capital city’s most-visited tourist attraction, limited hours of operation Wednesday and Thursday, closing the site from noon through 5:00 p.m. local time.
“This heat wave will go down in history,” Panos Giannopoulos, Greece’s state TV meteorologist said during a Wednesday broadcast, according to The Greek Herald.
“In the 20th century we never had a heat wave before June 19. We have had several in the 21st century, but none before June 15,” he said.
Heat waves, or heat and hot weather that can last for several days, can have a significant impact on society, including a rise in heat-related deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Heat waves are among the most dangerous of natural hazards, but rarely receive adequate attention because their death tolls and destruction are not always immediately obvious, according to the agency.
From 1998-2017, more than 166,000 people died due to heat waves, including more than 70,000 who died during the 2003 heatwave in Europe, according to the WHO.
(CANADA) — A segment of the polar bear population is at risk of extinction should ice-free periods continue to get longer, researchers have determined using analysis of the sea ice as well as the health of the bears themselves.
Ice-free periods in Canada’s Hudson Bay have been lengthening over the past few decades, scientists say. Global warming is projected to extend the ice-free periods even more, reducing the ability for the region’s resident polar bear population to hunt, putting them at risk of extinction if greenhouse gas emissions continue at projected levels, a study published in Communications Earth & Environment on Thursday found.
The Hudson Bay is historically one of the few places in the Arctic where polar bears have routinely come ashore when all of the sea ice has melted, Geoff York, senior director of research and policy of Polar Bears International and co-author of the paper, told ABC News.
What used to be an ice-free period of about four months has now extended far beyond, to the point that the polar bears in the southern and western Hudson Bay have been stretched to the point of genetic adaptation and the length of time they can fast, York said. Today’s Hudson Bay polar bears are spending five weeks or longer on land than their grandparents did, York said.
Collar cameras strapped to Hudson Bay polar bears showed that the longer extents of ice-free periods are putting the Hudson Bay polar bears at risk of starvation, according to a paper published in Nature earlier this year.
Polar bears that were forced to find food on land — by foraging on berries and eating birds — lost about the same amount of weight as the bears that simply fasted, proving that to these bears, food on land had nowhere near the same amount of nutrients as seals, which are full of fat and blubber, the researchers found.
“Their primary food sources require them to be out on the sea ice,” Alex Crawford, assistant professor at the University of Manitoba’s Department of Environment and Geography and co-author of the paper, told ABC News. “So that means that if they are spending [a] longer time on land in the summer, they are spending a longer amount of time effectively fasting.”
The early disappearance of sea ice, now in the late spring and early months, occurs at the same time that pups are being born and when mother bears put on most of their fat that will get them through the winter, York said. Putting them on shore early puts them in a precarious body condition for the upcoming cold months.
“Females are going to be less successful taking a pregnancy to term,” York said. “Even if they do carry it to term, they’ll be less successful in raising those cubs in the first year.”
Between 1.6 degrees Celsius and 2.6 degrees Celsius of warming since pre-Industrial times is the range in which the Hudson Bay polar bears are expected to go extinct, Crawford said.
“That low end, we’re knocking on the door of that already,” Crawford said.
The paper brings together the latest climate models with two components that greatly affect polar bear survivability — snow depth and ice thickness — for the first time, York said. Ringed seals, polar bears’ primary source of prey, need adequate snow depth to successfully den and protect their young in the springtime.
Even when accounting for bias in the climate models, the paper’s findings were still grim, Crawford said.
Predictions made in the early ‘90s about warming impacts on polar bears are happening sooner than expected, York said.
Researchers have observed “dramatic” drops in the Hudson Bay subpopulation of up to 26% in the last decade, York said. There are only about half the number of polar bears in the population than 40 years ago.
“That decline is already kind of in progress, and if anything, I think now we’ll see it likely accelerating,” York said.
There is a chance for the sea ice to recover drastically, Crawford said.
If greenhouse gas emissions were to stop altogether, the extent of the sea ice could reverse in just a matter of years, Crawford said.
