Beelzebub
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- May 6, 2014
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The biggest waste-water treatment plant in Gaza City isn’t the sweetest smelling place at the best of times. But today the abnormally acrid stench and large swarms of flies testified to the sewage stagnating in its lagoons. War has stopped the plant doing the job it was built for: limiting the pollution of the Mediterranean by semi-treating the 40 million litres a day it pumps into the sea.
Gaza, which enjoyed its first full day of peace yesterday, has lost 1,814 people, the vast majority civilians killed as they hid from Israeli bombardments. Its ill-equipped hospitals hold thousands of patients, many suffering from horrific injuries.
But Israel’s destruction of homes and infrastructure will ensure that the possibility of Gaza having a normal existence is a distant prospect.
The sewage plant, built with funding from KFW, the German development agency was put out of action by three tank shells. The result is that raw sewage routed through the plant is now being dumped untreated into the sea.
Munzer Shublak, the director general of the coastal municipalities water utility said yesterday that an earlier strike had hit one of the lagoons, spilling raw sewage over the neighbouring agricultural land. This was repaired but after the second bombardment he decided not to send his technicians out. Four of his team had been killed doing their jobs in Rafah and in central Gaza. “I stopped anything that might be a target for an Israeli attack,” he explained,
..........
It’s a paradoxical measure of the humanitarian crisis engulfing Gaza that because severe water shortages have reduced consumption by many residents to well below international emergency standards, Mr Shublak estimates that actual sewage flowing from Sheikh Ejlin will in turn be much less than the normal 40 million litres a day.
For the halt to waste treatment is only part of a much wider water and sewage problem. Oxfam said last night that the destruction by bombing of wells, pipelines, and reservoirs, caused contamination of scarce fresh water with sewage and that 15,000 tons of solid waste had seeped into Gaza streets. “We’re working in an environment with a completely destroyed water infrastructure that prevents people in Gaza from cooking, flushing toilets or washing [their] hands,” the agency said,
And that in turn is only one element of the infrastructural damage inflicted on Gaza by four weeks of war, much of which UN, aid agencies and local utilities had their first real chance to assess yesterday, the quietest since Israel’s Operation Protective Edge began on July 8.
Gaza?s survivors now face a battle for water, shelter and power - Middle East - World - The Independent
Famine shouldn't happen, but there will be hunger, for sure. Maybe hunger which will harm the younger survivors for life.
Water borne infections: highly likely.
Disease, from rotting food, rubble-buried flesh and bad water? Yes.
Preventable deaths from medical conditions and wounds inflicted by Israeli shelling. Yes.
Sniping and renewed shelling from Israel. Yes, of course. Hopefully small scale.
These should be attributed to Israel too, in their war-crimes trials.
And how will all these people be rehoused, when Israel has taken 44% of Gaza as its latest "military zone".
Gaza, which enjoyed its first full day of peace yesterday, has lost 1,814 people, the vast majority civilians killed as they hid from Israeli bombardments. Its ill-equipped hospitals hold thousands of patients, many suffering from horrific injuries.
But Israel’s destruction of homes and infrastructure will ensure that the possibility of Gaza having a normal existence is a distant prospect.
The sewage plant, built with funding from KFW, the German development agency was put out of action by three tank shells. The result is that raw sewage routed through the plant is now being dumped untreated into the sea.
Munzer Shublak, the director general of the coastal municipalities water utility said yesterday that an earlier strike had hit one of the lagoons, spilling raw sewage over the neighbouring agricultural land. This was repaired but after the second bombardment he decided not to send his technicians out. Four of his team had been killed doing their jobs in Rafah and in central Gaza. “I stopped anything that might be a target for an Israeli attack,” he explained,
..........
It’s a paradoxical measure of the humanitarian crisis engulfing Gaza that because severe water shortages have reduced consumption by many residents to well below international emergency standards, Mr Shublak estimates that actual sewage flowing from Sheikh Ejlin will in turn be much less than the normal 40 million litres a day.
For the halt to waste treatment is only part of a much wider water and sewage problem. Oxfam said last night that the destruction by bombing of wells, pipelines, and reservoirs, caused contamination of scarce fresh water with sewage and that 15,000 tons of solid waste had seeped into Gaza streets. “We’re working in an environment with a completely destroyed water infrastructure that prevents people in Gaza from cooking, flushing toilets or washing [their] hands,” the agency said,
And that in turn is only one element of the infrastructural damage inflicted on Gaza by four weeks of war, much of which UN, aid agencies and local utilities had their first real chance to assess yesterday, the quietest since Israel’s Operation Protective Edge began on July 8.
Gaza?s survivors now face a battle for water, shelter and power - Middle East - World - The Independent
Famine shouldn't happen, but there will be hunger, for sure. Maybe hunger which will harm the younger survivors for life.
Water borne infections: highly likely.
Disease, from rotting food, rubble-buried flesh and bad water? Yes.
Preventable deaths from medical conditions and wounds inflicted by Israeli shelling. Yes.
Sniping and renewed shelling from Israel. Yes, of course. Hopefully small scale.
These should be attributed to Israel too, in their war-crimes trials.
And how will all these people be rehoused, when Israel has taken 44% of Gaza as its latest "military zone".
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