The Mediterranean currents carry this sewage northward, toward Israeli beaches. Gidon Bromberg, EcoPeace’s Israeli Director said, “We are talking about a giant flow of over 90 cubic litres of sewage every day, which threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis who live in the southern coastal region.”
The desalination plant in Ashkelon, not far from the Gaza border, has already experienced closures due to the high amount of pollution in the water. Bromberg has no doubt that it is the sewage from Gaza that caused the plant to shut. As he stated, “There’s no other source.”
The United Nations predicts that the water from the Coastal Aquifer could be unfit for human consumption by the end of this year. The UN has also reported that if under-development continues, the Gaza Strip will be uninhabitable in just five years time, with water, sanitation and energy issues of prime concern.
Gaza could be the next refugee crisis, mimicking the current wave of Syrian refugees in Europe. Bromberg said, “The writing is on the wall. If Gaza’s water economy is allowed to collapse, tens of thousands of Gazans will start walking towards the border fences of Israel and Egypt. What will the Israeli or Egyptian military do? Would they dare shoot at civilians desperate for drinking water? As we see daily in Budapest and Calais desperate people will stop at nothing to try to save themselves and their families.”
Bromberg described the situation as a “ticking time bomb.” He continued, “This is a classic example of where nature knows no borders. If pollution exists on one side, it very quickly moves to the other side, because that’s the way nature takes it.”
An outbreak of pandemic disease in Gaza, due to a lack of sanitary conditions, is only a matter of time. If there were to be an outbreak of disease, and it were to enter the region’s water supply, the implications could be disastrous, especially for nearby Israel and Egypt.
“It’s a single shared bathtub,” Bromberg said. “There are 101 different ways for these bacteria to be transferred.” He warned that diseases like cholera and typhoid could easily make their way into Israel through the underground aquifer or the sea.
There are straightforward measures that can be taken to alleviate this situation. First, Israel could immediately double the amount of water it sells to Gaza from 10 to 20 gigalitres. The current capacity of the water pipelines is reported to be 20 gigalitres. If the imported water is blended with groundwater, up to 40 gigalitres of potable water would be available.
Increasing the electricity supply to Gaza would enable a newly built wastewater treatment plant to treat about a third of the sewage that currently flows into the Mediterranean daily. EcoPeace has been involved in asking Israel for an additional 6 megawatts that could be supplied right now through the existing grid between Israel and Gaza. In the longer term, building a high voltage electricity line could add an additional 100 megawatts of electricity. If this is coupled with a gas pipeline from Israel, to run the Gaza power station and a proposed 55 gigalitre desalination plant, Gaza would be in a much better place with its water and power.
Only 8 of the 10 gigalitres of water committed by Israel can be presently stored in the Gaza Strip. Additional storage capacity of up to 12 gigalitres is imperative. The network overall is estimated to have losses of up to 50 per cent, thus urgent investment to repair the existing structures is an extremely important next step.
These solutions rest in the hands of the Israeli government, including the Environmental Protection Ministry, the Energy, Water and Infrastructures Ministry and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territory. It’s in Israel’s interest to address the situation in Gaza. As one minister noted, Israel is dealing with pollution almost as bad as the Palestinians. Another minister said that it would be unnecessary to invest billions to mitigate the flow of wastewater to Ashkelon and to ignore the wastewater situation in Gaza. Unilateral solutions are inefficient. Sewage must be treated at source.
EcoPeace is committed to furthering and supporting any efforts to alleviate the water crisis in Gaza. Advancing real solutions on the ground, with the cooperation of Israel and international support, needs to be a top priority. As Bromberg said, “It’s a matter of urgency, failure to do so is shooting ourselves in the foot.”
