Maher Najjar of the Gaza Coastal Municipalities Water Utility said that the second of Gaza’s three big stand-by generators failed on Monday, “and we have no spare parts to fix it”.
This is a minor catastrophe, Najjar explained in a phone interview from Gaza, that could quickly become a major one, if there is any loss of electricity – because this stand-by generator has been used to maintain operations in one of Gaza City’s major sewage pumping stations. And, there are now constant power reductions and outages in Gaza, Najjar indicated.
As an immediate emergency measure, Najjar said, “We have asked the electricity company not to cut power at all to this sewage pumping station”. But if anything happens — for example, if demand suddenly exceeds capacity — then, Najjar indicated, the system will fail — and Gaza City’s Zeitoun district will be flooded with sewage.
Najjar said that while last week’s fuel crisis in Gaza has been temporarily alleviated, there are still rolling electricity cuts. Perhaps the worst problem, he said, is the acute shortage of crucial spare parts.
“We have not received any spare parts for over five months, nearly six months”, Najjar said on the phone from Gaza. “We have three containers of spare parts sitting in Ramallah”, he said. And, he added, many letters have been sent to the Israeli authorities about this urgency of this problem, without any response so far.