Free Republic

The following excerpt was taken from a classified report by Israel's Water Commission on the "Impact of the disengagement, summer 2005." "...if the Palestinians go ahead with their plans to lay a sewage pipe that drains into the sea in the northern Gaza Strip, it will paralyze the largest desalination plant in Ashkelon and pollute the nearby beaches. Crippling the operation of the desalination plant by piping sewage into the sea from northern Gaza is intolerable for the national water system. Any attempt to lay a pipe that drains sewage into the sea and pollutes our coastline must be physically stopped." The...

Grab them buckets, Mahmoud

UMM NASER, Gaza Strip -- A huge sewage reservoir in the northern Gaza Strip collapsed Tuesday, killing five people in a frothing cascade of waste and mud that swamped a village and highlighted the desperate need to upgrade Gaza's overburdened infrastructure. Rescue crews and Hamas gunmen rushed to the area to search for people feared buried under the sewage and mud. Dressed in wetsuits, they paddled boats through the layer of foam floating on the green and brown rivers of waste. Others waded up to their hips into the sewage. The noxious smell of waste and dead animals hung in...

A Palestinian rescue worker searches for bodies in raw sewage after a cesspool embankment collapsed in the village of Umm Naser, in the northern Gaza Strip, Tuesday. An earth embankment around a cesspool suddenly collapsed Tuesday, spewing a river of sewage and mud that killed at least 10 people.Photo: APPalestinian women are seen in their house after a cesspool embankment collapsed in the village of Umm Naser, in the northern Gaza Strip, Tuesday.Photo: AP   Gaza liaisons aid sewage-flooded townBy YAAKOV KATZ The Gaza Liaison Administration transferred two float water pumps through the Karni cargo crossing into the Gaza Strip...