After a spicy falafel lunch (the Gazan food is much more spicier than the food in the West Bank) I was driven to the coast by Nahed and Muhammad, both ANERA engineers. I needed photos of raw sewage, one of the few things there is no shortage of in Gaza. They took me to the Beach Camp. It sounds rather nice, but in reality it is a poor and cramped refugee camp run by UN. Where the camp meets the sea, a jumble of garbage, stone and crushed concrete seemed to be the beach. In the middle, a little fountain of brown smelly sewage poured up and found its way into the waves. Next to it, two young boys were fishing with a little hand-thrown net. The fish is attracted by the sewage, so for the boys it is an excellent place to try to catch them. That the sewage (and therefore the fish) carries a wealth of highly dangerous bacteria is totally disregarded.

 

Now and then we heard fighter jets passing by, and far out at sea, we saw two lights hovering over the horizon. It was probably Israeli helicopters, but it was impossible to judge at this distance.