GAZA, July 19, 2017 (WAFA) – Pollution of Gaza’s beaches has reached critical levels and is threatening the livelihood and health of the Strip’s two million population, Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

It said with electricity cut off the Gaza Strip for more than 20 hours straight and only three or four hours of supply, Gaza’s sewage treatment plants have stopped working and as a result 110,000 cubic meters of sewage from 23 stations are being dumped every day in the sea before being treated.

It said tests by the Ministry of Health and the Environmental Agency have found out that 73 per cent of Gaza’s beaches extending from Rafah in the south to Gaza City in the north are polluted from sewage.

“In light of these results, life of people is in imminent danger considering that the sea is the only resort for Gaza’s population (in the hot summer months) in spite of warnings by the Ministry of Health and the Environmental Agency not to swim in the sea,” said the Gaza-based al-Mezan.

It said that the situation in Gaza with power cut off for more than 20 hours a day makes it unlivable today, not in 2020, as a recent United Nations report has said.

Al-Mezan called for immediate international intervention to resolve this crisis with the electricity before the situation gets out of hand.

M.K.