Editor’s note: A version of this speech was given at the Climate/Divest STU Rally organized by student groups, STU Sustainability and Divest STU, at St. Thomas University in Fredericton on November 3, 2023.
Today, I want to talk about Palestine. When climate change is not the devastating news before us, it’s the ongoing genocide in Palestine.
We gather today to call on St. Thomas University to divest from fossil fuels, the most obvious climate culprits, but let’s not stop there. Our universities must divest from the weapons manufacturers who profit from war and climate change.

If we are to fight climate change, we must end capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and all forms of oppression. We must connect the dots and ask why is Palestine a climate justice issue? All other solutions that don’t connect the dots or look back into history to understand today’s hurt are false solutions, distractions, pipe dreams, not enough.
As Abeer Butmeh for Al Jazeera so eloquently wrote in 2019, Palestine is a climate justice issue.
Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestine daily denies Palestinians the right to live, the right to safe drinking water, and the ability to take care of their land and grow food. The siege and apartheid imposed on Gaza and the West Bank only worsens and intensifies the climate crisis Palestinians must endure — making them more vulnerable to climate change.
Today, the world is watching in horror as the Gaza Strip, an open-air prison under Israeli occupation and siege, is raided and bombed, its people unable to leave if they wanted to. According to the latest United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) report, nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced across the Gaza Strip since October 7.
The UN projected that Gaza would be unlivable by 2020. Many say it was unlivable well before then, and it’s definitely unlivable today as Israel has cut electricity and water to Gaza, and blocked the entry of fuel and food.
Gaza’s shortage of drinking water has worsened over the years, not only by climate change but also by Israel’s restrictions on the entry of materials needed for wastewater treatment. Because of these blockades, sewage has infiltrated Gaza’s aquifer. The sewage flows untreated into Gaza’s coastal waters, making the beaches toxic to humans and all marine life.
As pointed out by Butmeh in her 2019 Al Jazeera story, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs noted in 2018 that an estimated 97 per cent of Gaza’s scarce water is not drinkable. Contaminated water causes about 26 per cent of all illnesses in Gaza, and is a leading cause of child deaths.
When the bombs are not killing the children, it’s the sewage killing the children who swim in sewage infested waters to cool down during the increasingly hot summer days – the only relief where electricity is often not working.

Israel has destroyed much of Gaza’s land, soil and agriculture through bombardment and explosives. Palestinians are often denied access to arable land to grow food.
In the occupied West Bank, Israel controls 60 per cent of the land in area C. According to the Foundation for Middle East Peace, in 2019, 640,000 Israelis were living in the West Bank in illegal settlements. Visualizing Palestine estimates that Israel has uprooted 800,000 olive trees since 1967. According to a 2013 Al-Haq report, Israeli settlers consume six times as much water as the West Bank’s 2.9 million Palestinian residents. In what Amnesty US refers to as the occupation of water, illegal Israeli settlements have access to water to drink, irrigate crops and lawns, and fill their swimming pools. This is what Friends of the Earth Palestine calls water apartheid and climate apartheid imposed by Israel on Palestinians.
Climate injustices are felt all over the world. As the world prepares to go to Dubai for the next Conference of the Parties – COP 28 – the UN Climate Summit, migrant workers constructing the COP facilities are working in extreme heat that could kill them. Many migrant workers in Dubai from India, Pakistan, Nepal and other Asian and African countries have died working in construction. In fact, up to 10,000 migrant workers from Asian countries die in the Gulf countries every year. How unbelievably tragic.
I want to end by naming just three of the more than 9,000 people who have died in Gaza since October 7. The dead all had names and were loved. Not even a month has passed since Israel’s military assault on Gaza began and there has been such enormous loss of life. The three I wish to honour belong to the family of my colleague Tyler Levitan. They are his wife’s uncle Mohammad Al-Buhaisi, his cousin Hamden and his 2-year-old daughter Noor. They died in an Israeli air strike on their neighbour’s home that killed 14 in that family. For them and all who have perished, let’s move forward to build a more just, compassionate world.
To join the movement for a free Palestine, follow Fredericton Palestine Solidarity on Instagram or email us at fp.solidarity@gmail.com. We are picketing at Fredericton City Hall every Saturday at 12 noon to 2pm, until the siege is over.
As we rally for an end to fossil fuel use and for climate justice for all, let’s support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Let’s support an end to the siege on Gaza. Let’s make sure that Canada and our universities are not complicit in climate change and in Palestinian oppression through its investments or suppression of speech and academic freedom. Free, free Palestine!
Tracy Glynn teaches in the Environment and Society program at St. Thomas University and is a member of Fredericton Palestine Solidarity.