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Gaza's Poisoned Water - by Stephen Lendman
This article follows an August 6 one discussing Palestinians Denied Access to Water, found through the following link:
It explained how Israel exploits Palestinian water resources, using most of it, forcing them to find ways to get by. Water, of course, is essential to life, rights to it natural and usufructuary. Belonging to everyone as part of the commons, it must be used, not owned or abused, an essential truth Israel corrupts.
On August 5, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) published the latest in its "Narratives Under Siege" series, titled "There's Something in the Water: The Poisoning of Life in the Gaza Strip."
"THIS BEACH IS POLLUTED" signs dot Gaza City beaches, posing serious health hazards because of daily raw sewage dumped into the Mediterranean Sea through 16 discharge sites along the coast. Yet thousands fill them despite the dangers, including children, taking advantage of one of their few sources of respite - available, convenient, and free, but not safe.
For Gazans, the sea is part of their lives - to fish, gather with family, swim, and for children, play in the sun on hot days, a joy this writer recalls growing up on America's Atlantic coast. Summers were always the best time. The memories remain.
"Without the sea there is no Gaza," explains Abdel Haleem Abu Samra, Public Relations Officer of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights' Khan Younis Branch. Being unsafe is especially unsettling - its state in some form since 1991, but especially under siege, prohibiting equipment, construction materials, and spare parts to build new wastewater treatment facilities and repair existing ones.
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