Gaza’s water system collapsing due to IDF strikes, says Red Cross

[ellenrr]

Delegation head warns of desperate water shortage within days.

Repeated bombardments are destroying the vulnerable water system in Gaza, and the deaths of a number of local water authority technicians stresses the danger they face as they perform essential maintenance work, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/.premium-1.605332

[ellenrr]

1. Jefferson, this is one reason I think my claim of genocide is justified. nt

[IronGate]

4. No, your claim of genocide is not only not justified,

it's ridiculous at best.

[Jefferson23]

5. The meaning of words is important ellenrr, and most especially the application of words.

I disagree with you. There exists an enormous amount of documentation specific
to the human rights abuses through Israeli policy...it's more than bad enough
as it is. Any group of people who do/have suffer from such hideous acts of genocide
don't deserve to have their history blurred by seeing the word misused on other
causes where that meaning does not fit.

[cali]

22. well said. thanks.

It's horrific. Comparisons to apartheid? Yes, there are similarities. Gaza as an open air prison? Yes. (and yes, I'm familiar with the specious arguments against both claims) Genocide? No. Not even close.

[King_David]

13. You make lots of claims ,

Even one about Jews being threatened after the Holocaust to move to Palestine.( a commen claim in extremist right wing websites )

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113468184#post4


Where do you do all your reading ?

[IronGate]

7. The electrical grid problems are the making of the terror org Hamas,

twice their rockets have hit Gaza's power stations.

[azurnoir]

19. Not quite Israel

claims they hit power lines in Israel and that Israel isn't inclined to fix them

[alsame]

3. More from NBC:

TEL AVIV, Israel - A humanitarian catastrophe looms in the Gaza Strip due to a lack of water, aid agencies warned as Israel intensified air attacks on Wednesday and ordered 100,000 Palestinians to evacuate border areas.

Airstrikes have caused massive damage to water and sewage infrastructure and have destroyed at least 560 homes, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said as it declared an emergency in the area.

"Within days, the entire population of the Strip may be desperately short of water," Jacques de Maio, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Israel and the occupied territories, said in a statement. If hostilities continue, just as temperatures soar in the region, "the question is not if but when an already beleaguered population will face an acute water crisis," he said.

"Water is becoming contaminated and sewage is overflowing, bringing a serious risk of disease," de Maio added.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/middle-east-unrest/water-catastrophe-looms-gaza-israel-steps-airstrikes-n157086

[hack89]

6. Another good reason for Hamas to accept a cease fire and to actually observe it. nt

[geek tragedy]

8. so Hamas controls Israel's actions?

Amazing how the most powerful state in any direction for 1000 miles has all of its actions dictated by a ragtag group of psychos in a tiny piece of land.

[hack89]

9. Just their reactions

I understand you feel that Israel has a moral obligation to accept Hamas rockets without complaint because they deserve it. Can understand why some Israelis might disagree?

[geek tragedy]

10. No, they could start by not killing civilians and destroying

water treatment facilities as collective punishment.

Israel has alternatives they have refused to explore, such as committing to good faith negotiations that could lead to a Palestinian state.

[hack89]

12. ok nt

[azurnoir]

17. are you claiming that seeing as how Hamas rejected the cease fire Israel now has carte blanche to

act as it pleases?

[King_David]

14. Well there was a cease fire proposed by Egypt on the table

Israel accepted it and Hamas rejected it.

[geek tragedy]

15. You mean the Egyptian government

which hates Hamas more than Israel does?

The cease fire that Israel's government accepted before the entire Israeli cabinet, or Hamas, had a chance to review them?

The cease fire was a stunt and a way to score PR points against Hamas. The necessity of scoring PR points against Hamas being a pretty sad state of afffairs, given the global consensus that hamas are evil sacks of shit.

And, though it should go without saying, no a cease fire should not be necessary for hamas to stop committing war crimes against civilian populations.

[King_David]

18. Yes and so?

Hamas should take cease fire no matter what the ramifications .
There's nothing gain for them lots to lose
( even though they don't really care)

[geek tragedy]

20. Hamas's game is much like Likud's.

Continuing conflict and deaths amongst their own population will feed popular rejection of negotiations and demand for more violence and extremism.

Hamas and Likud have a toxic symbiosis.

[King_David]

21. While I never have supported Likud

To compare them to a terrorist org with no respect or compassion for their own people is absurd and just silly , you can't be considered a serious commentator here on this topic.

[geek tragedy]

23. Likud is Irgun twice-rebranded. Comparison is really too

accurate for some people's sensibilities.

[King_David]

24. Irgun from 70 yrs ago?

Not arllia the Hun or Some group from Middle Ages ?

[geek tragedy]

25. Irgun became Herut which became Likud.

All lead by Menachem Begin.

You really don't know this?


Begin's thugs were denounced by Ben Gurion as "enemies of the Jewish people" due to their violent extremism.

And now we're supposed to pretend their ideological heirs are a partner for peace?

[King_David]

26. 70 years ago

And I don't support them but to compare them to Hamas is absurd and you just look foolish and can't be taken seriously.

[geek tragedy]

28. Huh? Begin founded Likud in 1973.

He won election as PM under their banner in 1977.

It's the same ideology.

Shall I recite the relevant sections of the Likud charter to you?

Likud apologists are the ones who should not be taken seriously.

[King_David]

29. Nah I'm done

It's ridiculous --- I can't continue.

[geek tragedy]

30. Here's a parting gift, a quote from the next leader of Likud

The policies this militant settler faction is pushing revolve around a Jewish state from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean, which means Israel annexing the West Bank and Gaza and encouraging Palestinians – or Arabs, in Feiglin's terminology – to leave.


"The Arabs in the West Bank have no nationality apart from being part of the big Arab nation. They can stay in Judea and Samaria [the Biblical term for the West Bank], with rights they won't get anywhere else in the Arab world, as long as they accept Israel's sovereignty. They will have human rights but not the right to vote. If voting is so important to them, they have 22 Arab countries to choose from. If they stay without accepting Jewish sovereignty, that means war."


His political motivation was to strengthen the Jewish state, he said. "Israel is the home of the Jewish people. It is not a state of all its citizens." The reason why the Jews came back from exile to the promised land was not to establish a democracy, but to create a homeland, he added.


Feiglin pointed out that Likud's charter "flatly rejects" the creation of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan river. "It says specifically that these territories should be part of the state of Israel. I expect Netanyahu to act according to the charter."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/09/netanyahu-likud-settlers

Just. Like. Hamas.

[Igel]

11. They have crappy water and sewage systems in general.

Of course, there's a reason for it.

You need pipe to construct both.

You also need pipe to build the rockets that Hamas and IJ are so fond of using.

Shipments of pipe go missing, only to be returned to sender by air-mail with a bang every few years.

Cement is the same way. You need it to build a number of important pieces of infrastructure for civilian use.

And military bunkers and smuggling tunnels.

Somehow the government's priorities are always at odds with the civilian population's. The rockets and bunkers get built. As do big, impressive houses for leading government figures. The water and sewage systems and housing manage to get by.

[azurnoir]

16. Haven't the import both piping and cement been banned from Gaza for years?

the exception being for UN projects, however the type of piping used for water infrastructure is way larger than the type used for kassams not to mention the pipe used for kassams is most often metal, whereas the type used for water is infrastructure is either clay or pvc

[arcane1]

27. Shame on them for putting their water facilities so close to civilian areas.