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| NOV. 16, 2007 BEFORE THE LIGHTS GO OUT IN GAZA Israel chokes Gaza’s fuel & electricity, creating suffering and crisis The water in Gaza is salty, even brackish and contaminated due to over pumping. Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas on earth, must make do with the water from its own aquifer. Israel refuses to sell water to it. Gaza’s municipalities have responded by setting up large water desalination facilities. These, however, require electricity and Israel is now drastically reducing the fuel it sells to Gaza for the electrical system. The crisis began a year and a half ago when Israel bombed the electrical transformer station in Gaza. Even today the station can only produce 193 megawatts of power, far less than the 240 megawatts needed. The water network alone requires 25 megawatts to function at its present level. Gazans now receive water only every other day. When a power outage in a given area occurs on a day when the municipalities channel water to it, the houses are denied water for three, and sometimes even four, days. The water network needs 150,000 liters of diesel fuel per month. The sewage system needs 100,000 liters. Yet Israel agreed to sell only 60,000 liters of diesel fuel to the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility in October. The utility supplies sewage and water services in the Gaza Strip and must often choose which service to provide. If the water system breaks down, it will result in a humanitarian threat. But a sewage breakdown is an even bigger threat, so sewage treatment must take priority over drinking water. Fuel, however, is not the only problem for Gaza. Israel is also barring the entry of spare parts that are vitally needed to repair the Gaza City sewage treatment facility. As a result, sewage undergoes only minimal treatment before it must be expelled into the sea. Clearly the water and sewage crisis in Gaza has been artificially and intentionally created. Israel controls all the borders into Gaza. It has knowingly slashed Gaza’s supplies of fuel and electricity and imposed needless and massive suffering on the people. Yet now, incredibly, Israeli leaders are talking openly of getting even tougher by "darkening Gaza". As though Israel has not already made life in Gaza dark enough! Adapted from "A moment before the lights go out" by Israeli journalist Amira Hass, published by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on Nov. 07. 2007. Full text on line at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=921140 WWW.PAJUMONTREAL.ORG
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