Explore Corps has been receiving questions and comments from our supporters regarding the conditions of the sea in Gaza and the hazard posed by sewage output to the sea in and around Gaza City.  Let us first say thanks to all of your who have expressed your concern for the health of our friends in Gaza and the communities that they live in.  Your concerns for their heath and well-being are completely justified.  With hundreds of thousands of liters of raw sewage being dumped into the sea off Gaza every day for the last 3 years, the health risk to the community from water borne ailments is at a critical level.  How and why is this happening?  There are several reasons.

There are two main sewage treatment plants in the north of the Gaza Strip, and like any industrial facility, they require frequent maintenance and repairs.  Because of the ongoing siege imposed on Gaza by Israel, raw materials for maintenance and repairs have been prohibited from entering Gaza for the last two years, despite an contract between the Palestinian Authority and OXFAM to repair the facilities.  The problems were compounded in this winter’s war in Gaza where the treatment plants were targeted by the Israeli airforce and suffered substantial damage.  As a result, the facilities are unable to treat raw sewage in the northern Gaza Strip and the majority of it is dumped into the sea, with one main dump point at the Gaza City Marina in front of Al Diera Beach and the other to the south of Gaza CIty and inland where raw sewage is dumped into the Gaza River, where it flows out to the sea.

The result is that the sea of Gaza is highly contaminated and depending on the wind, the contamination easily spreads into southern Israel.  Despite warnings from government institutions and the international red crescent in Gaza, people continue to flock to the beach and bathe in the sea, which remains the city’s only shared community space.  Explore Corps has been working extensively with the surfers of both Al Diera and Sheik Khazdien beach to explain to them the hazards of swimming, surfing and fishing when sewage levels are high.

Thankfully there has been some slight progress in the last few weeks.  Repairs have been undertaken at the north treatment plant and, as a result, the volume of sewage being dumped into the Sea at Al Diera beach has been slightly reduced.  The water there is by no means safe, but it is a first step on the long road to recovery.  To the south, the river of sewage that flows into the sea continues to threaten the entire coast including southern Israel.

So what can you do to help?  Concerned citizens in Israel should contact their government officials and demand that the raw materials to repair the facilities be allowed into Gaza.  Water contamination levels in the southern Israeli city of Asquelon have reached dangerous levels as winds from the south blow the sewage across the sea-border.  The desalination plant in Asquelon recently announced that the seawater was now so contaminated that it would limit their ability to continue operation.  Obviously this is a shared problem and neither side can benefit from continuing the status quo.  Contact your government officials and demand a change in Policy.

American Citizens can do the same with their Congressional representatives.  Let your representatives know that a siege that threatens the health of hundreds of thousands of Gazans and Israelis is unacceptable and should not be tolerated.

We will continue to update the blog as the situation evolves and we will, of course, do our best to educate the surfers, fishermen and families of coastal Gaza regarding the threat posed by the contaminated sea, with the goal of finding a workable balance between caution and necessity.

Matthew Olsen

Director

Explore Corps