Sewage and Siege in Gaza
by Adriano Contreras | Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Areej Al-Ashhab, a resident of Gaza City, reports on yesterday’s flooding and evacuation of parts of central Gaza and the further devastation of Israel’s siege.

The story starts like this… at around 6:00 p.m yesterday Monday the 18th, Israel opened the floodgates of one of its dams in the eastern part of the Gaza Strip, causing a severe damage to the humble houses and tents in that area. In fact, this happened without a prior warning from on Israel’s part. The problem is that there has been heavy rain in the region over the past 24 hours and it seems the Israeli authorities could not handle the huge amount of rainwater and decided to open the floodgates without prior warning. And because Gaza is located in a low-lying area and the elevation decreases on the way to the Mediterranean Sea, water flooded into the area, deluging two Palestinian villages and displacing a hundred Gazan families. The waters from the dam, called the Valley of Gaza, flooded houses in Johr al-Deek village, which is southeast of Gaza City, and Nusirat in the eastern part of the territory, where the Al-Nusirat refugee camp is also located.

Note: The Valley of Gaza is about 8 kilometers long. It starts on the eastern Gaza border with Israel and ends in the Mediterranean. In this regard, I have to note that Israel has been using this valley as a way to dispose of its sewage water preventing Gaza from maintaining it’s clean water which is directed to Israel instead.

The flooding has made life more difficult for the Gazans, especially for those still living in tents because their homes were destroyed in the December 2008-January 2009 Israeli war on the Gaza Strip. During that war in which more than 1,400 people were killed, mostly women and children, and over 10,000 houses were destroyed or damaged, forcing at least 500 families to live in tents.

Today’s morning a friend who crosses the valley while coming to the University, told me that the scene is a shock there. That is, people are sitting in the air without houses. The smell is so bad because the water which entered the valley let sewage, which has stood there for years, to go out and to be disposed in the sea. As a result, the sea color turned into black green color which shows how it is polluted now. This indeed affects the fishermen and their only source of livelihood. In a word, the massacre still continues by the Israelis in one way or another…..

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For press coverage, check out the following:
http://www.palpress.ps/english/index.php?maa=ReadStory&ChannelID=20982
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3836334,00.html

Mona Khaleel contributed to this post.

Tags: flood, Gaza, Siege

3:23 pm. Politics.