Flooding sewage metaphor for Gaza
November 8, 2007 10:57 am Dehumanization of the Other, Gaza under Hamas, Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Abid Katib/Getty Images
Palestinians inspected their homes for damage after the earthen embankment around a sewage reservoir filled and collapsed on March 27, 2007, flooding Umm al Nasser, a village in the northern Gaza Strip.
Steven Erlanger, Gaza’s Reflection in a Foul Threat - New York Times, November 6, 2007
UMM AL NASSER, Gaza, Oct. 30 — Fahmi al-Abrak, 70, was at home on March 27 when a lagoon of human waste broke through its sand embankment and hurtled downhill, inundating this poor village of Bedouins in northern Gaza. “It rose to here in 15 seconds,” he said, pointing to a discolored line on the walls, four feet above ground.
Residents of Umm al Nasser pulled belongings from their homes after the wave of sewage struck their village in March.
Five people died, drowned in the wave of waste, along with scores of goats, sheep and chickens. Nearly 1,000 people had to be taken out of the village. Now, Mr. Abrak said, “I’m afraid to go to sleep at night.”
The lagoon disaster seemed a sort of metaphor for Gaza — overcrowded, lacking in resources, coping with makeshift answers to long-term problems. But the lagoon, which held more than 150,000 cubic yards, is dwarfed by the huge lake of sewage it was built to reduce.