Gaza beaches attract holidaymakers after they get rid of wastewater 

• Sabah Abu Ghanem is happy to surf again.

  AFP

• Swimming and water sports enthusiasts are happy to resume their activity.

  AFP

• People gather around the beaches after the sea water has become swimmable.

  AFP

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On the beach of Gaza City, Palestinian Sabah Abu Ghanem carries a surfboard, to practice her favorite sport, after the local authorities announced the completion of cleaning most of the beaches, which officials and international institutions say are 75% polluted due to wastewater being pumped towards them.

The pumping of large quantities of wastewater towards the beach has deprived the residents of the Strip for years of recreation on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea naturally, but today two-thirds of those beaches are safe for swimming.

The aggravation of the electricity crisis caused an increase in sea water pollution, with treatment plants stopped working after Israel destroyed the only power plant in Gaza in 2006.

Sabah, 22, looks out at the sea. She tells how her father, who worked as a lifeguard on a beach in Gaza City, taught her to swim at the age of five.

"I have never swam in the sea for a year because of the pollution, and I haven't surfed for several years," she says.

And she continues, "As soon as I enter the sea, or surf, I feel free and happy... I replace all negative energy with positive energy."

Sabah, who wore a bathing suit she borrowed from her friend due to her poor financial conditions, asked her brother to put wax on the skateboard to avoid slipping and improve control.

Sabah, a mother of three, complains about how "the siege imposed on Gaza prevents the import of all equipment needed to ride the sea, whether it's boards, wax, or swimming suits."

She adds, "My brothers and I decided to resume swimming and surfing, but I will not allow my children to swim because their skin is sensitive, and so they do not get infections."

2.3 million people live in the Gaza Strip amid an air, land and sea blockade, imposed by Israel since 2007 and the Hamas movement's control over the Strip. More than two-thirds of the population of the Strip suffers from poverty, while the unemployment rate is 43%.

The armed factions in the Gaza Strip have fought four wars with Israel since 2008.

turning point

In what is considered a turning point in the level of cleanliness of sea water and helping to reduce its pollution, Maher Al-Najjar, Deputy Director of the Projects Unit at the Coastal Municipalities Authority in Gaza, points out that “60 tons of solid waste were lifted daily, which were being pumped towards the sea.”

Al-Najjar explains that the cost of sewage projects in the Strip has reached $300 million over the past 10 years.

For his part, the Director of the Environmental Resources Department at the Water and Environmental Quality Authority in Gaza, Muhammad Musleh, says that the percentage of safe beaches today represents about 65% of the total beaches in the Strip.

This is due, according to Musleh, to partially treating sewage water, diverting it and re-filtering it to the aquifer, and linking sewage pumps in areas adjacent to the coast to a 24-hour electricity network.

He added that the Water Authority, in coordination with the Ministry of Health, collected and analyzed 40 samples of seawater from the Gaza Strip.

The results showed a significant improvement in the level of water quality.

children and swimming

With the start of the school holidays and the rising temperatures, the residents of the Gaza Strip flocked to the beaches, which are for them the only outlet under the Israeli siege.

Despite the algae disturbing the clarity of the water, what matters to thousands of vacationers is that the sand of the beach has restored its golden color after the wastewater dyed it black.

Umm Ibrahim Sidr, 64, sits on the beach with her daughters, daughters-in-law and grandchildren to relax.

"This is the first time we have come to the sea in a year, because we know that it is polluted and we fear for children from diseases ... Before we came, I stipulated that they not swim, but we did not control the children, as soon as they saw many people swimming until they went swimming," she says.

"I felt pain and itching in my chin. I will not go down again today, maybe next time," said Khaled, nine.

As for his cousin Ibrahim (13 years old), who continued swimming despite the redness of his eyes, he said, "I miss swimming in the sea. I haven't swam for a year."

Marine lifeguard Mohammed Zeidan (32 years old) says that the congestion rate on the beach has doubled this season to reach 80%.

Last December, the sewage treatment plant in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip began treating 60,000 cubic meters of sewage in Gaza City.

 The pumping of large quantities of wastewater towards the beach has deprived the residents of the Strip for years of recreation naturally on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, but today two-thirds of those beaches are safe for swimming.

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