“To Block Gaza Tunnels, Egypt Lets Sewage Flow”

Love the pic.

(Via Lex)

UPDATE: A commenter points out that the linked article is more than a year old, a fact that I overlooked. I still love the pic.

11 thoughts on ““To Block Gaza Tunnels, Egypt Lets Sewage Flow””

  1. The article is from a year and a half ago when Muslim Brother Morsi was still President. Is the practice continuing?

    [Jonathan adds: Yup. Missed that. Thanks.]

  2. “Along with the stink, the approach is raising new questions about relations between Egypt’s new Islamist leaders and their ideological allies in Hamas who control the Gaza Strip.”

    Hamas has done several ideological flips. Even Morsi was not that fond of them. Now they are isolated. Nobody but Kerry and Obama in their side.

    And weirdly enough, Qatar , where our Central Command base is located.

    The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, was the most prominent Arab leader to visit the Gaza Strip in December of last year, and was elatedly received by Hamas as he announced the start of Qatari reconstruction projects in Gaza, which amounted to more than $450 million.

    In an interview with Al-Monitor, Hamas’ spokesman in Gaza, Salah Bardawil, said that the [good] relations between Hamas and Qatar are the product of Qatar’s political and financial support for the Palestinian cause and the Gaza Strip.

    Then we have: Beginning in 1992, Qatar has built intimate military ties with the United States, and is now the location of U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center.

    And In 2014 The United States sold $11 billion worth of warlike stocks to Qatar, including Apache helicopters and Patriot and Javelin defense systems.[12] Qatar has also concur to invest in some NH90 helicopters from NH Industries for $2.76 billion.[13]

    It’s enough to make one’s head spin. Or be cut off.

  3. That is an odd photo. I can’t tell where he is bailing from and to – and don’t see how it is doing any good whatsoever. I assume it was (poorly) posed for drama.

  4. I can’t tell where he is bailing from and to – and don’t see how it is doing any good whatsoever.

    So they bail sewage like they shoot rockets. Ineptly.

  5. What surprises me is that when Morsi was in power he ordered it – I could see the Egyptian junta doing this but the Muslim Brotherhood?

    Why is Hamas politically isolated? There’s certainly enough fellow radical Muslims in the Mideast

    Do they not like the baggage that they bring with them?

  6. Israel debuted its
    Trophy tank defense system.

    Offensive high tech weaponry has gotten a bad rap lately, and this conflict hasn’t helped that. Defensive weapons, on the other hand have performed superbly, and they’ve been a showcase for Israeli science and technology.

    Sooner or later the UN charities and Persian Gulf Petrosheiks are going to realize that sending money to Gaza for rockets and tunnels is the equivalent of flushing it down those sewers when faced with Israel’s capacity to innovate. Bad press from the Left or not, when this is over the big winner is going to be the Israeli economy.

  7. Classic.

    And in its’ own way classy. This properly taxonomies [or classifies] the actual Arab view of Filastina. They’d annihilate it in a week if it ever happened.

    They’re alone now.

    As for Qatar and the other little princethings, it’s time to leverage our forces there. Being ruthless would have it quiet and ours in days.

  8. This isn’t the first time that sewage has turned up in Gaza-Israel relations. From 2007:Gaza Sewage Flood Kills 5.

    UMM NASER, Gaza Strip – A huge sewage reservoir in the northern Gaza collapsed Tuesday, killing five people in a frothing cascade of waste and mud that swamped a village and highlighted the desperate need to upgrade Gaza’s overburdened infrastructure. …

    Aid officials said plans to build a larger waste treatment facility had been held up for years by perpetual fighting in the area between Israel and Palestinians and donor concerns about political instability. However, construction did not appear to have been affected by international sanctions imposed on the Palestinians after the militant Hamas group’s election victory last year.

    The existing treatment plant in northern Gaza ”” located just a few hundred yards from the border with Israel ”” stores waste in seven holding basins. With the burgeoning population producing nearly four times as much waste as the plant could treat, officials have put overflow sewage in the nearby dunes, creating a lake covering nearly 110 acres, the U.N. said. …

    Fadel Kawash, head of the Palestinian Water Authority, said the sewage level had risen in the reservoir in recent days. Shepard said the earthen embankments also had been weakened by rain.

    But Gaza City Mayor Majid Abu Ramadan, who leads a council of Gaza municipalities, blamed the collapse on lawlessness in the Gaza Strip, accusing residents of stealing the dirt and selling it to building companies for $70 a truckload.

    A 2004 U.N. report warned that the sewage facility, built for a population of 50,000, was handling waste from 190,000 people, and flooding was inevitable. It warned that the lake created by the overflow from the seven basins posed a serious health hazard, providing a breeding ground for mosquitoes and waterborne diseases. …

    Umm Naser is about 300 yards from the border with Israel, in an area where Palestinians have frequently launched rockets into Israel and Israeli artillery and aircraft have fired back. The situation worsened after Hamas-linked militants captured an Israeli soldier last June in a cross-border raid, and Israel responded by invading northern Gaza.

    The flooding underscored the fragility of the overburdened infrastructure in the impoverished and overcrowded coastal region of 1.4 million people. The West Bank too, is suffering from eroding sewage and water infrastructure.

    Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum blamed international “sanctions against Palestinians” for the sorry condition of Gaza’s infrastructure. Most foreign donors froze aid to the Palestinian government after Hamas came to power last year, but Shepard said a project to build a treatment plant in northern Gaza had not been affected by the boycott.

    Turns out there was a reason for lack of sewage pipe.Gaza Terrorists Used Sewer Pipes to Make Kassam Rockets

    Golda Meir once said that peace will come to the Middle East when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israeli children. (And that was before the phenomenon of parents celebrating the “martyrdom” of their children who become suicide bombers.)

    Dry Bones’ Yaakov Kirschen paraphrases that sentiment, in his take on the Gaza sewage disaster. Moreover, Kirschen’s internet research discloses the direct connection between the tragedy in Umm Naser and the Kassam rockets launched at Israel from the immediate vicinity of that town. Here are links to two relevant news stories:

    The first, from Israel National News on Feb. 26, 2007, reported, “Israeli authorities have charged that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is digging up sewage pipes in the Gaza area so that the pipes can be used for Kassam rockets. The charges were made after the PA accused Israel of causing sewage to be spilled on Gaza’s main north-south highway by not allowing needed pipes to move through border crossings.”

    The second, from the Jerusalem Post of March 4, 2007, reported the arrest by Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency, of a Palestinian who was buying pipe in Israel for resale to Hamas and other terrorist organizations, for the manufacture of Kassam rockets. The article stated, “The pipes that were sold to [the arrested suspect] were intended for the construction of a sewage system in Gaza. The Shin Bet has been unable to determine the amount of metal that actually made its way to the terror organizations, and how much went to the sewage project.”

    The latter article notes that in 2006 Palestinian terrorists fired 1700 rockets at Israel. The Palestinian terrorists made sewer pipes into rockets and now their families have drowned in sewage. The appropriateness of retribution is almost, dare one say, Biblical.

    Time for Israel to apply the hammer to Hamas/

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