Posted on 03/27/2007 11:15:36 AM PDT by SJackson
(IsraelNN.com) Israel has offered assistance to hundreds of Palestinian Authority Arabs affected by a flood of raw sewage that swept through a Bedouin village in the northern Gaza Strip Tuesday afternoon. Defense Minister Amir Peretz instructed the IDF to prepare for the possibility of evacuating the injured to Israeli hospitals. The village, Umm Nasser, is near Beit Lahiya and less than a kilometer from the Gaza Strip border with Israel.
At least 25 houses in the 200-family village were immediately swamped when the local sewage system's cesspool wall collapsed and pipes burst. Between six and nine people are reported dead, dozens are injured and some 200 are unaccounted for. Hundreds fled or were evacuated by rescuers, and armed Hamas members rushed to the area to search for victims trapped in the rubble of the decimated village.
Angry residents attacked rescue workers, drove reporters out of the area and mobbed government officials who arrived at the scene. When PA Interior Minister Hani Kawasmeh arrived to survey the damage, his bodyguards fired in the air to disperse the crowd.
While Umm Nasser Council Member Ziad Abu Farieh called the flood "our own tsunami," PA officials laid the blame for the disaster on Israel and the Western powers. According to PA Environment Minister Yousef Safia, Israel threatened to bomb previously planned construction work for a modern sewage system in the area.
A Gaza-based spokesman for the ruling Hamas terrorist organization, Fawzi Barhoum, blamed Western economic sanctions on the Islamist-led PA for the dilapidated infrastructure in Gaza. Foreign funding for several sewage treatment projects was frozen by the donor nations after Hamas was voted into power in PA elections last year. PA Water Authority Director Fadel Kawash said that there had been a sewage treatment project underway for two years before it was ended due to what he called "troubles." He blamed Tuesday's accident on the poor local infrastructure as well.
No, the deal is that Israel, the US and the EU pay for these things, the palestinians need their money for Swiss bank accounts, and bombs with what's left over.
They already did....
Well, they're civilians. Personally I'd shut the border an completely break contact, but Israel does these things for what I suppose are admirable reasons.
Pretty much SOP with these people,nothing unusual.
Amazing they dont mention the billion plus bucks that arafat stole from them.
Maybe the Widow Arafat might donate some of her millions to help these poor victims?
PA officials laid the blame for the disaster on Israel and the Western powers.
Of course Israel and the USA is to blame. After all, "palestinians" are just pets, unable to care for themselves just like cats, dogs and hamsters...
According to PA Environment Minister Yousef Safia, Israel threatened to bomb previously planned construction work for a modern sewage system in the area.
That's strange.
Muslims all around Israel threaten them daily with total destruction by the "religion of peace", yet the Jews go right ahead and build themselves the infrastructure needed to maintain a civilized and healthy existence. Jews seem to be more competent and self-sufficient than muslims? Whod'a thought?
A Gaza-based spokesman for the ruling Hamas terrorist organization, Fawzi Barhoum, blamed Western economic sanctions on the Islamist-led PA for the dilapidated infrastructure in Gaza.
Can't extort enough money from the western countries?
How about the portion of the umma which is oil-rich and rolling in money?
Can't get them to help you with the necessities of civilization?
Why's that?
Let them drown in their own s##t.
After so many people said it so many times, the Lord answered their prayers.
No, arab muslims don't have the brains to do anything themselves.
They are however, every one of them, demolition experts.
They've achieved the pinnacle of Arab technology--they invented the juvenile bomb vest and they make the kids and vests themselves. Of course, they make the rest of us pay fo the their nits (aka kids) and the materials for the bomb vests.
The North Gaza Emergency Sewage Treatment Project (NGEST) is the fourth intervention to the Bank giving high priority to improve water and sanitation services in the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank.
Back in 1976, Beit Lahia wastewater treatment plant (BLWWTP) was constructed as an initial attempt to improve the sanitation conditions of the northern Gaza. The initial capacity of the plant was limited to 5,000 m3/day. However, demand was increasing and the daily sewage inflow is currently around 13,000 m3.
The combination of increasing volume of sewage inflows and insufficient capacity to properly handle it has led to poorly treated effluent overflowing from the treatment plant into the surrounding sand dunes, creating a lake of nearly 1.5 million CM of foul water, which now covers over 35 hectares (350 donums).
The water level in this poorly treated effluent lake continues to rise and is threatening to hydraulically overflow the whole sewage collection system and flood the neighboring communities.
In 1992 3 people died as they were flooded after the breakdown of the emergency pond sand embankments.
Upon request from the Palestinian Water Authority, the Bank responded positively to participate in solving the problems associated with BLWWTP. Further in June 2004 negotiated and signed with the Palestinian Authority the terms of NGEST aiming at: i) Mitigating the immediate and gathering health and environmental safety threats to the communities surrounding the effluent lake at BLWTP and ii) Providing a satisfactory long-term solution to the treatment of wastewater for the Northern Governorate in Gaza.
Due to the lack of funding at the initial stage, the implementation of the project was split into two parts. Part A has started since November 2004 and. It is designed to drain the lake and thus alleviate the environmental and health threats associated with the existing wastewater treatment plant. The effluent would be transferred to another site, where new infiltration basins will be built.
This will ensure that the immediate threat of flooding posed to the communities that are neighboring the BLWTP and backflows of raw sewage in the sewerage system are eliminated. Part A is fully funded under Grant Agreement with the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, EIB. Part B will provide the medium/longer-term solution to the wastewater treatment issue in northern Gaza area by commissioning a new wastewater treatment facility with improved effluent quality standards. The Bank support, commitment and good partnership
The blame game from the Palestinians continues and Israel still goes out of their way to help and are they thanked? No!
The Palestinians can give the US Democrats a run for their money with their blame tactics, and their destructive nature.
The West has given these Arabs enough money to make each and every one of these Arabs rich and their streets and sewers lined with platinum. They are trained to prefer to wallow in their own spiritual excrement and kill all peoples who spend their energy on peace and civilized pursuits. They live to pull the rest of the world down. Their religious and political leaders don't care a bit for their own people, only for power, jealousy, and hate. The U.N. should have a committee on the irrational Palestinian Arab hate and its baleful ramifications in the world.
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