{"id":4556,"date":"2016-08-12T14:30:03","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T19:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=4556"},"modified":"2016-08-12T14:30:03","modified_gmt":"2016-08-12T19:30:03","slug":"water-water-water-israel-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/08\/12\/water-water-water-israel-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Water, Water, Water: Israel & Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Water is imperiled from many sources: weather, neglect, malicious forethought – and sometimes karma. AL Monitor<\/strong><\/em>‘s Shlomi Eldar explores Israel’s self-inflicted water wound<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

In May, Gaza\u2019s sewage system collapsed<\/a>,\u00a0and raw sewage reached the water reservoir of the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. Gaza\u2019s sewage plants have ceased functioning due to the lack of electricity, and left wastewater flows into Israel untreated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout electricity, water cannot be produced and wastewater cannot be treated,\u201d said Eilon Adar, a\u00a0hydrologist and the former director of Ben-Gurion University\u2019s Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Department of Environmental Hydrology and Microbiology in Beersheba. \u201cAn aquifer knows no borders. Water does not stop at a border. At the moment the damage is negligible, but Gaza is now dumping its untreated wastewater near the Beit Lahia wastewater treatment plant. This site, founded a number of years ago with Israel\u2019s agreement, is only about 200 meters [660 feet] from Israel\u2019s border and the [effluent] \u2018lake\u2019 seeps into the coastal aquifer.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Adar, when Gaza’s wastewater treatment plant does not function, Israel stands to suffer as well. The ramifications of this can already be seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cGaza sends wastewater to the area of the nonfunctional treatment plant, causing the water\u00a0level to rise. A virtual mountain of underground water has been created that will flow to the only place in Gaza that still has drinkable water. That water will become contaminated and then disaster will hit. Once [contaminated] water permeates potable water, it will be almost impossible to fix the situation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So why the shortage of electricity?<\/p>\n

The electricity crisis in Gaza began after former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert<\/a> instructed the Israel Defense Forces\u00a0to destroy the transformers in Gaza\u2019s electrical station in retaliation for the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006. Although the station was partially restored, it never returned to its former level of performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday there is only one operating turbine, which supplies a bit of electricity to Gaza residents,\u201d said one of Gaza\u2019s largest fuel merchants, who requested\u00a0anonymity. He told Al-Monitor that there is just enough fuel to partially\u00a0operate one\u00a0out of four small, reconstructed turbines.\u00a0Before the station was destroyed it supplied some 125 megawatts. The station’s capacity, together with electricity supplied through direct lines from Israel and Egypt, guaranteed a more or less reasonable level of electricity. Now, however, the station provides no more than 50 megawatts, and the direct electricity lines from Israel and Egypt often suffer temporary cuts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Will Netanyahu work to resolve the problem? If he doesn’t then he hurts his own people as well as inflicting suffering on the Palestinians. Sort of a negative version of the Golden Rule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Water is imperiled from many sources: weather, neglect, malicious forethought – and sometimes karma. AL Monitor‘s Shlomi Eldar explores Israel’s self-inflicted water wound: In May, Gaza\u2019s sewage system collapsed,\u00a0and raw sewage reached the water reservoir of the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. Gaza\u2019s sewage plants have ceased functioning due to the \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4557,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions\/4557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}