GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Wastewater pumping stations in one of Gaza’s main cities stopped working on Tuesday because fuel had run out, the local authority said, expressing fears that disease could rapidly spread.
Tens of thousands of people displaced by the Israel-Hamas war have sought shelter in Deir Al-Balah, and city authorities said more than 700,000 people could be at risk from a “health and environmental crisis.”
“Deir Al-Balah municipality announces the halt of water waste pumping stations because stocks of fuel necessary for their functioning are exhausted,” said a city statement.
It predicted that “roads will be flooded by waste water” and “diseases will spread.”
Gaza has had no electricity supplies since the war was unleashed by the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. The fuel-powered waste plants treat water that is then put into the Mediterranean.
“Nineteen pits and two large reservoirs are unusable in Deir Al-Balah,” Ismail Sarsour, an official with the city’s emergency committee, said ahead of the release of the statement.
He said the stations handle wastewater for more than 140 points of shelter where tens of thousands of people have taken refuge.
The Palestinian Authority’s water department, the PWA, which is based in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said recently it had arranged for tens of thousands of liters of fuel to enter Gaza.
But Palestinian experts said the water crisis is so deep that the fuel alone would not help. Sarsour and the experts said there was also a critical shortage of spare parts to repair damaged infrastructure.
Israel said this month that, with help from the UN children’s agency UNICEF, it has connected one desalination plant in southern Gaza to its electricity network. It is unclear if the plant has started working.
The Palestinian Authority also said Tuesday that it expected electricity supplies to start again in central Gaza in “coming days” to power public infrastructure. Israeli authorities have not confirmed the move.
Israel’s military offensive since October 7 has killed at least 38,713 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.
The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Gaza city says water treatment stops, 700,000 face health ‘crisis’
https://arab.news/gzqgj
Gaza city says water treatment stops, 700,000 face health ‘crisis’
- “Deir Al-Balah municipality announces the halt of water waste pumping stations because stocks of fuel necessary for their functioning are exhausted,” said a city statement
UNRWA chief: Gaza polio vaccination coverage has reached 90 percent
The campaign to vaccinate some 640,000 children in Gaza under 10 years of age against polio, which began on Sept. 1, presented major challenges to UNRWA and its partners due to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
It followed confirmation by the World Health Organization (WHO) last month that a baby had been partially paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the Palestinian territory in 25 years.
More than 446,000 Palestinian children in central and south Gaza were vaccinated earlier this month before a campaign to vaccinate a final 200,000 children in north Gaza began on September 10 despite access restrictions, evacuation orders and shortages of fuel.
The first round of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza ended successfully, UNRWA’s chief Philippe Lazzarini said, adding that 90 percent of the enclave’s children had received a first dose.
“Parties to the conflict have largely respected the different required “humanitarian pauses” showing that when there is a political will, assistance can be provided without disruption. Our next challenge is to provide children with their second dose at the end of September,” he wrote on X.
Israel began its military campaign in Gaza on Oct. 7 last year after Hamas led a shock incursion into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The resulting assault on Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health ministry, and reduced much of the territory to rubble.
Moroccan authorities stop migration attempt into Spanish enclave of Ceuta
- Some attempted to breach a border fence that has long been a flashpoint for sporadic migration tensions, the Spanish Interior Ministry said
- Moroccan authorities also arrested 60 people suspected of inciting a mass migration attempt on social networks
RABAT: Moroccan security forces stopped groups of people who sought to force their way across the border into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta following a call on social networks for a mass migration attempt, authorities said.
Some attempted to breach a border fence that has long been a flashpoint for sporadic migration tensions, but none successfully made it into Spain, the Spanish Interior Ministry said Monday. It said Spanish and Moroccan security efforts over recent days ″allowed the situation to be brought under control.”
Online messages in recent days had called for people to head for Ceuta on Sunday to cross the border into Europe. Videos posted by local networks showed groups of people in the hills around the Moroccan border town of Fnideq, and a heightened Moroccan security presence, including helicopters.
Moroccan authorities also arrested 60 people suspected of inciting a mass migration attempt on social networks, Moroccan intelligence agency DGSN said in a Facebook post.
Ceuta and Melilla — two tiny Spanish territories in North Africa bordering the Mediterranean — have long been targeted by migrants and refugees seeking better lives in Europe. Many attempt to climb over barbed wire fences encircling the autonomous cities or reaching the exclaves by sea.
Nationwide, Moroccan security forces stopped more than 45,000 migration attempts from January to early September, according to the Moroccan Interior Ministry. In August alone, more than 11,000 migration attempts were prevented in the region around Ceuta and another 3,000 in the area around Melilla, it said in a statement.
Last month, thousands of migrants attempted to cross into Ceuta, including hundreds of young people who tried to swim their way around controls, according to Spanish authorities.
Jailed Iranian Nobel laureate urges action against ‘oppression’ of women
PARIS: Jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi on Monday urged the international community to act to end the “oppression” of women in Iran, two years after the start of a women-led protest movement.
“I call on international institutions and people around the world... to take active action. I urge the United Nations to end its silence and inaction in the face of the devastating oppression and discrimination by theocratic and authoritarian governments against women by criminalizing gender apartheid,” she said in a letter written in Tehran’s Evin prison on Saturday and published by her foundation on Monday.
Turkish drone kills PKK member in northern Iraq
- Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq
BAGHDAD: A Turkish drone strike killed one member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and wounded two others in northern Iraq on Monday, Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said.
“The Turkish strike targeted a meeting of PKK members in the Makhmour camp, killing one and wounding two others including a senior PKK official,” the statement added.
Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in the Iraqi territory.
The PKK launched an insurgency against Ankara in 1984 with the initial aim of creating an independent Kurdish state. It subsequently moderated its goals to seeking greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in southeast Turkiye.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels say they downed another US-made MQ-9 Reaper drone
- The Houthis have exaggerated claims in the past in their ongoing campaign targeting shipping in the Red Sea over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed Monday that they shot down another American-made MQ-9 Reaper drone, with video circulating online showing what appeared to be a surface-to-air missile strike and flaming wreckage strewn across the ground.
The US military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Houthis’ claimed downing of a drone over the country’s southwestern Dhamar province. The Houthis have exaggerated claims in the past in their ongoing campaign targeting shipping in the Red Sea over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
However, the online video bolstered the claim, particularly after two recent claims by the Houthis included no evidence.
Other videos showed armed rebels gathered around the flaming wreckage, a propeller similar to those used by the armed drone visible in the flames. One attempted to pick up a piece of the metal before dropping it due to the heat.
Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesperson, identified the drone as an MQ-9, without elaborating on how he came to the determination. He said it was the third downed by the group in a week, though the other two claims did not include similar video or other evidence. The US military similarly has not acknowledged losing any aircraft.
Saree said the Houthis used a locally produced missile. However, Iran has armed the rebels with a surface-to-air missile known as the 358 for years. Iran denies arming the rebels, though Tehran-manufactured weaponry has been found on the battlefield and in seaborne shipments heading to Yemen despite a United Nations arms embargo.
Reapers, which cost around $30 million apiece, can fly at altitudes up to 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) and have an endurance of up to 24 hours before needing to land. The aircraft have been flown by both the US military and the CIA over Yemen for years.
The Houthis have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that has also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well.
The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
Those attacks include a barrage that struck the Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion in the Red Sea. Salvagers have begun towing away the burning oil tanker, hoping to avoid a catastrophic leak of its 1 million barrels of oil on board.
