Ikhwanweb :: The Muslim Brotherhood Official English Website

Gaza water authorities: 90 percent of water is polluted

Director of the water authority in the coastal areas Mundher Shiblak warned Monday that the percentage of water pollution in the Gaza Strip reached to 90 percent, pointing out that the crisis is worsening due to the lack of desalination and wastewater treatment plants.

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Director of the water authority in the coastal areas Mundher Shiblak warned Monday that the percentage of water pollution in the Gaza Strip reached to 90 percent, pointing out that the crisis is worsening due to the lack of desalination and wastewater treatment plants.

This came in a meeting held on the occasion of the world water day under the auspices of the water authority, Al-Dameer association for human rights and the UNICEF in Gaza city.

Shiblak said that that the authority in cooperation with many concerned parties managed to limit the risks threatening the population living around the water basins in Gaza, adding that the sewage treatment plant was rehabilitated at a cost of $23,000,000 funded by the German development bank.

He noted that this rehabilitation project would protect the aquifer and sea water for only two years, adding that another wastewater treatment plant is being established in Gaza valley in order to provide a temporary solution to the water crisis.

The water authority director also said that a sewage network has been established to remove the environmental risks from Al-Amal neighborhood in Khan Younis

The official pointed out that his authority took advantage of the remains of the destroyed border wall between Gaza and Egypt to make a water plant serving Rafah residents until 2020.

The official asserted that all the solutions provided to resolve the water crisis is not permanent and sustainable.

For his part, Max Gerald, the WHO humanitarian coordinator, said the resources of healthy clean water are absent in Gaza and most of the residents have no access to safe water.

Gerald called, in a speech delivered on his behalf by the director of the WHO office in the occupied Palestinian lands, for pooling the efforts to provide safe water resources for Gaza people.

He stressed that Gaza and the West Bank are both suffering from water crisis as a result of the Israeli control of all water sources in most areas.