For over a month Palestinians in Gaza have
endured 18 or more hours/day power outages. Now, with unusually heavy rains,
cold temperatures, Israeli-released torrents of water (suddenly opening of dams
along the border with Gaza), and even snow, Gaza is under water, under siege,
and people are suffering freezing conditions.
State
of Emergency in Gaza
It is cold, there is no power,
and I am charging my computer using a car battery in order to get this message
out. It is so cold in Gaza that everyone has cold feet and a cold nose. A new
storm is hitting this besieged enclave. There is no electricity, and shortages
of water, fuel, and vital services mean people just sit and wait for the
unknown.
Tens of houses east of Gaza
City, in the northern Gaza Strip, in Khan Younes and Rafah are flooded with
rain today. The sewage system cannot function and Gaza municipalities announced
a state of emergency. Schools and most shops are shut, there is no traffic and
few people are walking in the street.
Gaza City’s garbage trucks have
been at a standstill due to the ongoing fuel shortage. I’d gotten used to the
bright orange truck that usually passes by, sounding its horn, a sign for all
my neighbors to bring out their garbage for collection.
Now the donkey is our only
remaining hope. Since last week—when fuel supplies ran dry—the only sound one
hears now is the click-click of their hooves as they pull their carts along the
road at 4 a.m.
By noon, they have collected all they can on their busy route.
In Gaza’s Barcelona neighborhood, garbage containers are overflowing—a normal
occurrence since fuel ran out. Tonight, the smell of rotten sewage floods into my nose. I inhale and exhale the stink of rotten garbage. The night air is filled with this suffocating small, and in the morning I can only hope that Abu Ghaleb will be around with his donkey and cart to try to clear away as much as he can.
The Gaza Strip was pounded by
fierce winds and rain again on Friday 12/13/2013 as flooding reached dangerous levels in
many areas, forcing thousands to flee their homes amid widespread power outages
as temperatures plunged into the single digits.
The flooding was worst in the
northern Gaza Strip, where hundreds fled their homes and water levels reached
40-50 cm in some parts, forcing residents to use boats to navigate their
neighborhoods.
The Gaza government said in a
statement on Friday that so far 2,825 people have been evacuated from their
homes, reaching a total of 458 families.
The Gaza Government’s Disaster
Response Committee announced late Friday that Israeli authorities had opened up
dams just east of the Gaza Strip, flooding numerous residential areas in nearby
villages within the coastal territory.
The Gaza Strip is currently
under a state of emergency due to severe weather conditions caused by a
historic storm front moving south across the Levant.
Fuel shortages have caused
daily life in the Gaza Strip to grind slowly to a halt since early November, as
power plants and water pumps are forced to shut down, cutting off access to
basic necessities for Gaza residents.
Lack of diesel fuel is a result
of the tightening of a seven-year-long blockade imposed on the territory by
Israel with Egyptian support.”
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