Wednesday April 01, 2009 10:00 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

Exactly two years after a massive sewage flood killed 5 Palestinians and destroyed an entire Bedouin village, another flood has overwhelmed the same village, located east of Jabalia, due to the collapse of an overloaded wastewater basin.

The efforts of the international community and the Palestinians in Gaza over the last two years have prevented the disaster from being as widespread and catastrophic as it was two years ago, but the sewage overflow has caused a major threat to the health and safety of the residents of the village.

 The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights has called for an investigation into the causes of wastewater basin collapse, and called on the international community to intervene to stop the Israeli siege on Gaza.

According to a report by the Al-Mezan Center, the bank collapsed despite the fact that waste water from the basin has been pumped to a new treatment plant east of Jabalia since the end of November 2008. This is taking place on a trial basis. The trial is aimed at assessing the effectiveness of the new plant following the completion of phase one of the project.

The second and third phases are due to take place over the coming three years. The pumping of the water has been taking place at a medium level for an average of three hours a day. The relevant Palestinian authorities started to relocate the basins near the Bedouin Village to an area in east Jabalia on 1 April 2007 after receiving coordination from the Israeli Forces.

It was expected that the first phase would have been completed two months after that date. However, as a result of Israeli obstructions and the scarcity of materials due to the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip, the project was not completed on time and phase one took longer than expected. The trial period is therefore still continuing today.

The Al-Mezan Center also reported that the basin that burst on 27 March 2009 is one of two basins established north of the Bedouin village after the Bedouin Village disaster that occurred on 27 March 2007. On this date, a basin flooded the village with catastrophic results. The immediate solution at that time was to pump the wastewater out of the village in a random manner into open land near the separation borders north of the Bedouin village.

The project to create the two new basins was aimed at reducing the risk of further flooding of the existing basins in the area. Work began to build the two new basins on 2 April 2007 after the relevant Palestinian authorities - the Costal Water Facility, the Joint Services Council and the Water Authority - were able to get coordination from the IOF through international humanitarian organizations.

 Al Mezan has undertaken extensive work on this issue, working with Palestinian authorities, local residents and donor agencies, and affirms that the Israeli military has played a major role in the creation and exacerbation of this issue.