Gaza’s sewage tsunami

No number of reports on the destitution and general squalor in the Gaza Strip, where half of the population is unemployed and well over a third impoverished, could have prepared us for the sort of grotesquery that is now taking place in Umm Naser, a 3,000-person village in northern Gaza. But what do you expect when a sewage treatment facility intended ...

No number of reports on the destitution and general squalor in the Gaza Strip, where half of the population is unemployed and well over a third impoverished, could have prepared us for the sort of grotesquery that is now taking place in Umm Naser, a 3,000-person village in northern Gaza. But what do you expect when a sewage treatment facility intended to serve 50,000 people actually serves 190,000?

No number of reports on the destitution and general squalor in the Gaza Strip, where half of the population is unemployed and well over a third impoverished, could have prepared us for the sort of grotesquery that is now taking place in Umm Naser, a 3,000-person village in northern Gaza. But what do you expect when a sewage treatment facility intended to serve 50,000 people actually serves 190,000?

A spewing river of sewage and mud that erupted after an earth embankment around a cesspool collapsed [and] has killed at least five people and forced residents to flee a village in the northern Gaza Strip. Dozens of residents of Umm Naser were still unaccounted for after the sewage knocked down many makeshift homes, officials said."

The sewage incident underscores the unusual nature of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. I mean, one side probably has around 200 nuclear weapons, while the other can't even take care of itself.

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