COGAT works to thwart disease from sewage pollution
The sewage travels in Gaza through Wadi Hanun, near Beit Hanun and continues into Israel around the area of the Erez Crossing, Bromberg said.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFUpdated: AUGUST 31, 2017 23:03IDF LT. LIOR SHWEITZER (left) prepares the delivery to Gaza of pesticide at a border crossing last week(photo credit: COGAT SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
Israel has sent containers of pesticide into Gaza to kill mosquitoes and other bugs carrying disease from the untreated sewage, specifically in the area of Beit Hanun, the Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.The pesticide was funded by Israel, and Lt. Lior Shweitzer coordinated its transfer last week.“We want to help the situation in Gaza,” he told the Post.But Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli director of EcoPeace Middle East, said that pesticides were just one small part of what is needed to stop the crisis created by the daily flow of 90,000 cu.m. of untreated sewage into the Mediterranean.The sewage travels in Gaza through Wadi Hanun, near Beit Hanun and continues into Israel around the area of the Erez Crossing, Bromberg said.From there it flows into the region of the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council and onward to the Mediterranean, he said.There is not enough electricity in Gaza to treat the sewage, he said. Initially Israel built a dam to halt the flow and trucked the sewage to a treatment center in Sderot.Than Israel built a pipeline directly to that sewage treatment center, he said, but Israel lacks the capacity at present to treat all that sewage.A new sewage treatment plant funded by the World Bank is under construction in Gaza that could treat a third of its sewage, but it will not be operational without electricity, he said.
