U.S. Aid Sanctions Turn Taps Off Critical Palestinian Water, Wastewater Projects

[Purveyor]

YATA, West Bank: One slip, and Issa Abu Shakr's 5-year-old nephew plunged into the fetid stream of sewage that flows outside the family's West Bank home.

The contact with the filthy water required multiple blood transfusions and a 10-day hospital stay, Abu Shakr says.

A few miles (several kilometers) away, Maisoun Seidat picked up a blue bucket for one of her three daily trips to a communal cistern. People shouldn't have to fret about something as elemental as water, Seidat says, but in the parched West Bank, it's a constant worry.

These are the human face of the toll exacted by U.S. sanctions following the rise to power of the militant Islamic Hamas group.

U.S. projects were to have dried up the toxic flow that threatens the Abu Shakrs and bring more water to the Seidats. But the money has disappeared into the morass of Mideast politics.

---END OF EXCERPT---

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/04/africa/ME-FEA-GEN-West-Bank-Palestinians-Endangered-Lifeline.php

[Joanne98]

1. I don't know how people can say Darfur is genocide and ignore this.

Cutting off people's water is murder.

[cali]

5. Oh, let me explain it to you.

Life in Gaza and the WB is difficult. It's a grind. People suffer. And the Israelis have a large portion of the blame for it. Now how is that different from Darfur? Let's see. Over 400,000 people have died in Darfur, many massacred. The rape of women and children is widespread. There are over 2 million refugees living in conditions that make Gaza look good. Really. It's that bad in Darfur.

Get a clue. You desperately need one.

[Tom Joad]

2. Israel bombed power plant in Gaza, electric power is critical to

both pumping fresh waters into homes, and in sewage treatment.

[bigluckyfeet]

3. The Article Says Plans Were Suspened

Now who would want to stop this project?..and I bet they were never caught.
" plans were suspended after three U.S. government contractors were killed by unidentified
assailants in October 2003. Moves to resuscitate the project were cut short after Hamas' rise."

[oberliner]

6. The power plant has been repaired

And Gaza residents also receive power from the Ashkelon plant.

[mitchtv]

4. That'll teach'm to elect the "unacceptable"

representatives. Remember Chile had the nerve to elect the wrong person president, and they paid:sarcasm: