Municipalities in Gaza Drain Sewage into the Sea Due to Power Outage
Gaza, MINA – Due to the shortage of power supply and the intermittent power outages in the besieged Gaza Strip caused by the Israeli blockade, municipalities in the coastal enclave started on Sunday pumping sewage into the sea, according to Wafa.
For more than three weeks now, Israeli occupation authorities have shut down the Karm Abu Salem border crossing with Gaza, the only gate though which Israel allows the entry of basic commodities into the Strip, including badly needed fuel and gas.
This has handicapped the ability of the local sewage treatment plants to function as usual, prompting municipalities to start getting rid of the sewage into the sea despite the pollution and natural dangers it will cause.
The Gaza Electricity Company (GEC) said it was grappling with huge financial and physical difficulties getting fuel for the only power plant in Gaza, given the ongoing Israeli shutdown of Karm Abu Salem border crossing and the ensuing shortage of most badly needed supplies.
It said as a result of the lack of fuel needed for the only power plant in the Strip, it was forced to shorten the average time of power supply to each household in the coastal enclave to a daily average of no more than four hours.
The GEC warned that the continued of the ramifications of the acute electricity shortage on vital sectors in Gaza, including the health sector, hospitals, and the sanitation sector, as some municipalities were forced to drain wastewater without treatment into the open fields and into the sea, which poses an imminent threat to the lives of citizens and the marine environment.
Earlier this week, the GEC said the Israeli occupation authorities continue to hinder the maintenance electrical power transmission and distribution lines hit by the recent Israeli aggression.
It cautioned that such Israeli occupation actions threaten to lead to the unprecedented possibility of a complete collapse of Gaza’s health system and other vital facilities, such as the water and wastewater facilities, and undermine the company’s ability to carry out its tasks.
The company stressed that the severe shortage of maintenance materials will prevent it from proceeding with carrying out the electrical reparations, as it pointed to its urgent need to obtain such materials.
It held the Israeli government direct responsibility for the lives of thousands of civilians and the collapse of the health system and the wastewater sector, as thousands of cubic meters of untreated wastewater is discharged into Gaza’s environment, infiltrating and polluting the coastal aquifer as well as Gaza’s seashore. (T/RE1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
