Israel Turns Over Gaza Water Processing Facility to Palestinians

(2005)

According to Shlomo Dror, spokesperson for the Coordinator of Activities in the Territories, Israel is still supplying water to Gaza that it previous supplied to the Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip. Prior to the disengagement, Dror said, Israeli and Palestinian officials toured the Israeli water processing facilities to insure the proper transfer of the facilities. The Palestinians were given documentation to allow them to use the facilities Israel built to process sewage water for reuse in agriculture (80% of the water used by Israeli agriculture in the Gaza Strip was processed sewage water). Dror added, “The only thing we took with us were the tanks of chlorine out of concern that someone might take them and release the chlorine into the air. We told the Palestinians that we are holding the chlorine tanks in storage and would be happy to give the tanks to them at no charge, but to this day the tanks remain in storage.”