The biggest waste-water treatment plant in Gaza City isn’t the sweetest smelling place at the best of times. But today the abnormally acrid stench and large swarms of flies testified to the sewage stagnating in its lagoons. War has stopped the plant doing the job it was built for: limiting the pollution of the Mediterranean by semi-treating the 40 million litres a day it pumps into the sea.
Gaza, which enjoyed its first full day of peace yesterday, has lost 1,814 people, the vast majority civilians killed as they hid from Israeli bombardments. Its ill-equipped hospitals hold thousands of patients, many suffering from horrific injuries.
But Israel’s destruction of homes and infrastructure will ensure that the possibility of Gaza having a normal existence is a distant prospect.
The sewage plant, built with funding from KFW, the German development agency was put out of action by three tank shells. The result is that raw sewage routed through the plant is now being dumped untreated into the sea.
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