Gazans Still Without Power, Water, Sewage Treatment September 10, 2006

Hat tip to Dina from MySpace for turning me on to this.

In the sweltering Middle Eastern heat, hundreds of thousands of Gazan people are still without power after the main power plant in Gaza (providing 140 mW of electricity) was bombed in an Israeli air strike.

The UN’s Office for Humanitarian Affairs notes:

“I am going crazy without electricity. There is even a shortage of candles now – I had to use the two my wife and I had received from our marriage. I worry about [starting a] fire,” said the 36-year-old from Beit Lahiya.

For the past two months, Gaza residents like Aqdeir have lived without a regular supply of electricity after the Israeli military bombed Gaza’s only power station on 28 June.

So they’ll just stay in the dark, right?

The lack of electricity means sewage cannot be treated, increasing the risk of disease spreading, and hospitals cannot function normally. It means ordinary Gazans cannot keep perishable food because their fridges do not work.

At night, they are plunged into complete darkness when the electricity cuts off. They rely on candles and paraffin lamps. Many residents have also been left with an irregular water supply as they need electricity to pump water up from nearby wells or from ground floor level to higher floors in blocks of flats.

No electricity at night, no sewage treatment. Irregular water supply. The basics of human life.

It’s times like this that the UN’s humanitarian efforts are most needed. However, the UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency) has complained that due to a lack of access, they can not provide these basic necessities to the people in Gaza:

Every two months, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) gives out food to Palestinian refugees living in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian-administered area bordering Israel and Egypt.

Its latest food delivery has been delayed by a lack of access. “Food distribution will not start until we can get our products into Gaza. The 830,000 refugees we feed will not have any food from us,” said John Ging, UNRWA’s Director of Operations in Gaza.

UNRWA usually brings food supplies through the Karni Crossing, a cargo terminal on the eastern end of a barrier between Israel and the Gaza Strip. But Israel has closed the crossing, saying it discovered a tunnel that could be used to attack its border personnel.

“We had to close the checkpoint because we have civilians working there and we don’t want them killed by the Palestinians,” said Shlomo Dror, spokesman for Israel’s Government Coordination Office, which monitors the humanitarian situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Dror told IRIN that Israel had offered to open other border crossings such as Sufa, which is farther south - but said the Palestinian authorities had refused.

“We are dependent on this border opening up,” said Ging. “We have no alternative. The local market cannot supply us with the quantities [of food] that we need. We tried to source two weeks’ supply of lentils locally. We needed 200 tonnes, only half that was available.

Is there no way to provide for human life without sacrificing security? Is there anyone even looking into finding it?