Tag: Gaza

PCHR: Narratives Under Siege – Swimming in Sewage

In order to highlight the impact of the siege and closure of the Gaza Strip on the civilian population, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is publishing a series of “Narratives Under Siege” on the PCHR website. These short articles are based on personal testimonies and experiences of life in the Gaza Strip, and look to highlight the restrictions, and violations, being imposed on the civilians of Gaza.

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Narratives Under Siege: Swimming in Sewage

“I think the sea probably is polluted. Sometimes I get strange white marks on my skin; but we come down to the beach every day because we have nowhere else to go.” Samer and his friends are hanging out on the beach in Gaza city, next to the old fishing harbour, and just about to jump into the sea. One of the boys holds a plastic bottle with several small fish and a tiny crab trapped inside. The fish are all dead. Less than a hundred metres away, a sewage pipe pours mucky water into streams of dark waste that flows towards the sea where Samer and his friends swim.

Summer is intensely hot in the Gaza Strip, and families flock to their local beaches en masse. But on some beaches, bathers are now, literally, swimming in sewage. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), since January this year, 50- 60 million litres of untreated and partially treated sewage have been poured into the Mediterranean Sea surrounding the Gaza Strip every day. “This sewage cannot be treated due to the lack of a steady electricity supply within the Gaza Strip” says a recent OCHA report on Gaza sanitation. Hamada Al-Bayari works for the Gaza OCHA office. “We’re very concerned that the sea is becoming dirtier and more contaminated because of the chronic shortages of fuel and spare parts” he says. “Gaza’s sewage treatment plants urgently need fourteen days of uninterrupted power in order to run a proper sewage treatment cycle, for the sake of Gaza’s public health.”

The Gaza Coastal Municipal Water Utility (CMWU) is responsible for providing drinking water across the Gaza Strip as well as managing Gaza’s three sewage treatment plants. Due to ongoing chronic shortages of electricity, fuel and essential spare parts, unfiltered tap water is saline and undrinkable throughout the Gaza Strip, and none of the sewage treatment plants are functioning normally. CMWU have recently been forced to increase the volume of raw and untreated sewage being dumped at sea to around 77 million litres per day, to avoid flooding densely populated residential areas, like Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, where 3 million litres of raw sewage recently had to be pumped into a flood water lagoon. Despite last week’s signing of the Tahdiya, or ‘Calming’ between Israel and Hamas, normal fuel supplies have not been resumed, and CMWU has less than a third of the fuel it needs to run a full sewage and waste water treatment service in Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel has severely restricted the entry of essential spare parts for Gaza’s sewage and waste water treatment plants since July 2007.

There is now widespread concern about the state of the Gaza Strip Mediterranean Sea. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently took samples from 30 Gaza Strip sea shore sites, and tested them for human faecal and animal faecal contaminants. Thirteen areas covering seven beaches along the Strip, were identified as polluted and unsuitable for swimming, including three beaches along the central and southern Gaza Strip and four beaches in and around Gaza city. The beach next to Gaza harbour where Samer and his friends swim every day, is one of them.

WHO has warned that, “Waterborne outbreaks are particularly to be avoided because of their capacity to result in the simultaneous infection of a high proportion of [the] community.” These outbreaks can include gastroenteritis, ear infections, dermatitis, dysentery, respiratory and urinary tract infections, eye infections, guardia and strains of e-coli. WHO health guidelines suggest that water borne pathogens are one of the world-wide causes of death and disease, and like OCHA, the organization has reiterated that Gaza’s sewage treatment plants urgently need upgrading, and need more fuel.

“These restrictions are a clear violation of the universal right to health and the right to a clean environment” says Khalil Shaheen, Head of the Economic and Social Rights Unit at the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). “Under international humanitarian law, Israel, as an occupying power, is obliged to facilitate access to all amenities. Access to clean drinking water and sea water are nothing more than basic human rights.”

This recent research on the quality of Gaza’s seawater does not suggest any immanent deadly threat to public health: but the fact remains that Gaza’s sea is dirty and contaminated because the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) are denying Gazans the means to clean up their own sewage, and no-one yet knows how serious the health risks are. Collective punishment of a civilian population violates international humanitarian law, but Israel is blatantly continuing its violations, and now Gaza’s tap water is undrinkable, and its sea water increasingly unfit to swim in. The June 19 Tahdiya was signed in order to cease hostilities between Israel and the Gaza Strip, and eventually end the siege of Gaza. But to date, the crossings remain closed, and Gaza’s most basic amenities, like its sanitation services, are literally being stretched to breaking point.

Action in solidarity with Gaza postponed

Dear Friends,

Due to hopeful developments for the people of Gaza, we have decided to wait another week before holding the previously planned demonstration. We hope that the current cease-fire will provide some immediate relief for the besieged people of Gaza, though as of yet the exact details of the arrangement are not entirely clear.

Therefore, at this stage we feel that it would be irresponsible to continue with the action before some clarity has been brought to the situation, especially considering the current political climate in Egypt. As the situation for the people of Gaza becomes clearer we will be able to judge how best to show our solidarity with the people still living under siege. Therefore we are postponing the action for one more week and ask you to do the same if solidarity actions are being organised in your communities.

International Days of Action to Stand With Gaza June 27th

On June 19th a ceasefire was called into effect between Gaza and Israel. Demonstrations of solidarity with the people of Gaza and the humanitarian crisis they continue to face are planned for the weekend of June 27th.

On June 27th, demonstrations will be held in Rafah City—both the Palestinian and Egyptian sides of the city—to show solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza. We call on international human rights activists, Palestinian rights organizations, and people of conscience around the world to organize parallel demonstrations on or near June 27th, alongside the demonstrations in the divided city of Rafah.

The siege was imposed by the Israeli government in June 2007 upon an economy already strangled by over a year of sanctions. In the past year, it has resulted in the repeated denial of vital medical access, severe food shortage, and strained supplies of food and electricity. It has rendered Gaza a virtual prison, and collectively punishes its residents in clear violation of international and humanitarian law.

Moreover, the European Union and the governments of Egypt, Israel, and the United States have defaulted on their obligation to enable and facilitate the flow of people through the Rafah border crossing, making us complicit with the deadly campaign waged by the government of Israel.

Please gather in your own city or town to say to your government “Not in my name!” and show your solidarity with the imprisoned people of Gaza.

A Girl from Gaza Identified by her ID

By: Haneen Zaqout – Grade 10, Friends School, Ramallah

We all spend a lifetime trying to figure out what makes someone who they are, and what defines them. Is it their characteristics, appearances, or behaviors? It may be a combination of all…for regular people. But for people who come from where I come from, figuring out who they are is not a choice for them. I come from Gaza City in Palestine, where surviving each day is a huge struggle for all Gazans. Leaving Gaza was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, partly because I miss my old life, and partly it is the guilt kicking in.

When I left Gaza, I had to go through this checkpoint. It’s not ANY checkpoint. It is the Erez Checkpoint and its there to imprison the people of Gaza because as soon as the Israeli soldiers see a Gaza ID, that person is automatically considered an utter terrorist. Without knowing who they are, without any idea whatsoever about those people, they decide that they are criminals. Who has the right to take a person’s identity from them? Or to judge them based on a piece of paper or nationality? How can they take away people’s choice of trying to figure out who they really are? I don’t know… but as I was walking through that long tunnel in that checkpoint, I realized that no matter what I do, no one will accept me for who I am. In that tunnel, they make no difference whether I am a terrorist or a person who is yearning for peace, not only for my people but also for the Israeli people.

I had the “privilege” to leave Gaza that others dream of having. Not because they don’t love Gaza, nor for the fun of it, but because it is so hard to live there. Home became something you want to escape from instead of being the place you can run to when life gets too hard. As soon as I was through that checkpoint, after being treated like an animal, after being “numbered” like baggage, checked out by all the screening machines that never occurred to my mind that I would ever see them. I now live in Ramallah, which is only 2 hours away from Gaza. I left that exotic part of the world called Gaza; but still have it on my mind every second of the day, still influenced by my past there, and still motivated by its people’s strengths.

On the news, the talk about how Gaza has NO fuel, NO food, and even NO electricity; but the TV is just a source of information to pass on how people are suffering…does that mean that anyone outside Gaza understands what the people are really going through? No, they listen to that devastating news, ‘feel bad’ for the people going through it, and continue on with their lives like nothing happened. Maybe some people can pretend, but as for myself I can’t! This is the main reason I’m writing this for as much as I know that words can be inconsequential, they can also make a difference in many people’s lives.

I hate that I feel guilty every time I eat a piece of chocolate, knowing that a friend or a little child is craving one. I hate that when I’m bored I can open the TV or the computer and waste time, while my friends have nothing to do considering they have no electricity. I hate how I can go wherever I want, whenever I want, even outside Ramallah, while my friends are stuck at home because they have no fuel to even go around Gaza city! I hate buying new clothes, because my friends can’t. I hate that I’m absolutely and utterly helpless.

However in Gaza, regardless of the situation, you always find love and hope, you find people struggling for their lives. A mother trying to put a smile on her child’s face, a father trying to get the strength to protect his child’s little body from a missile. In Gaza you find those mixed feelings between love and hatred, between hope and despair, between frustration and satisfaction. In Gaza, you find people smiling when they cross the borders, even when it takes them hours and even days to cross. In Gaza you find just what you need. You find home.

Gaza 3ala Bali: Protest in Ramallah in solidarity with the fishermen of Gaza

On the 16th June, people gathered in the center of Ramallah in a show of solidarity with the fishermen of Gaza, who today set sail in protest against the brutal Israeli imposed siege which is destroying their livelihoods. In Ramallah, demonstrators sat in inflatable boats while declaring ‘Gaza On My Mind’.

This action was in support of the Palestinian International Campaign to End the Siege’s ‘A Quest For Freedom’ initiative that saw Gazan fishermen launch their boats in protest against the ongoing siege, in conjunction with protests at fishing docks around the world.

Over 40,000 people in Gaza make a living from the fishing industry, yet this community has been decimated by Israeli restrictions on fishing rights and the prevention of fuel from reaching the Gaza Strip.

According to the Fishing Syndicate in Gaza, fishermen need 40,000 litres of fuel and 40,000 litres of natural gas each day to operate throughout the high fishing season.

Starting in April each year, there is a migration of fish from the Nile Delta to Turkish waters which Palestinian fishermen have traditionally relied upon. Yet Israel limits fishing 6 miles from the Gaza shore and regularly attacks those who venture further than 3 miles – over 70 fishermen were arrested last year by the Israeli forces. The large schools that form the migration are usually found 10 miles from shore. The average catch of fish was over 3000 tons a year in the 1990’s, now it is around 500 tons directly due to the Israeli siege of Gaza.

Not only this, but the brutal effects of the siege, the water in which the fishermen of Gaza sail in is now receiving 50 million litres of sewage per day because the people of Gaza have no alternative.