Image Credit: Mohammed Omer, Rafah Today 2007-04-22.
Strike by unpaid municipal workers adds garbage to Palestinians growing misery
Rafah Today via BBSNews 2007-04-22 -- By Mohammed Omer. It stinks here... literally, hazardously. The stench here is disgusting, overwhelming, dizzying, not fit for humans or animals. It is nearly impossible to concentrate, as I write this, with the vile odor intruding into my bedroom and thoughts.
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Garbage in Gaza from municipal worker strike over unpaid wages.
Image Credit: Mohammed Omer, Rafah Today 2007-04-22. |
In the refugee camps and villages of Palestine, the streets have disintegrated into one massive, extended, festering garbage wasteland. Rubbish lines the streets, thrown any and everywhere: in the main streets, at street corners, and dangerously close to supermarkets and restaurants ... Everywhere you go, the foul odour of rotting rubbish permeates the air---rubbish which has not been collected and taken away for more than a week now. There is no place for it, uncontained, in residential areas. Yet here the garbage lies, growing, reeking.
The offensive stink leaves you wholly unable to function; it rots your life, like the rotting of the overflowing garbage containers producing the stench.
The rot, the stench, the accumulation of refuse increases by day, following the start of the municipal workers' strike. One of the workers on strike related: "Of course I'm not pleased to see the garbage thrown everywhere. The putrid smell is harming everybody. But I have financial demands, and I want to live with my family. At the end of the day, I want to go back home to my children and wife with some food, money, and soap to wash my hands." The worker, who preferred not to mention his name, insisted that his message needs to reach all decision-makers.
He, like so many other Palestinians, has not received his salary for numerous months now, largely thanks to the over one year long international economic sanctions imposed on Palestinians following the January 2006 democratic election of Hamas. When he has no money, he can of course no longer function or live. "How am I going to live? Where will I get money from? I appeal to people around the world: I'm a garbage collector, and I just want to work and lead a simple life, and live like a citizen of any other country," he said in a tone of sad exasperation and frustration.
The Larger Picture
It's not only the striking municipal workers who have been adversely affected by international sanctions; other Palestinian civil servants and citizens are strangled by the internationally-imposed restrictions. Restrictions? Does that term suffice to describe the limitations inflicted on civilians? They exist in a state of crisis: they can no longer afford basic municipal services, such as water and electricity. With other public and sanitation works---services which fall under the responsibility of the municipalities--crippled, their situation worsens daily. Along with the monetary sanctions imposed on Palestinians---sanctions which include witholding Palestinian tax money taken from Palestinians themselves---the employees who would previously have been paid by municipal authorities to perform such tasks as garbage removal now live un-paid, hand-to-mouth (both empty) in the same daily struggle to survive as other Palestinians.
The striking municipal workers have taken sirens from the garbage trucks and protest, sirens wailing, throughout Gaza City. They carry posters and banners inviting an immediate solution to the workers' problems. Close to the Palestinian Legislative Council, thousands of people and workers crowd with their empty rubbish carts and close off the streets in protest against what's going on.
In the protest tent, near the Alan Johnston support tent, thousands of people gathered to protest, among whom included mayors and workers from all of the different municipalities. One of the workers was Saleh Abu
Sleshel. "Everything in my home is up for sale. I sell anything that I can sell in order to afford to buy some food for my children and to live in dignity---we appeal to the Palestinian Authority (PA) to look seriously at our situation. We need to live as well," he said.
In regards to Abu Sleshel's plea, I must counter that the PA has no money; since the Hamas party was elected early last year, the situation has gotten much worse. And now, it's getting increasingly more serious, with still no money coming in. Although the Minister of Finance, Salam Fayyad, is working hard to break the siege and convince the west to allow money to Palestinians, it doesn't seem promising. Thus far, even after the recent formation of the national unity government, PA employees have still not received their salaries.
One worker mentioned that the combined salaries for all the Gaza Strip municipality employees working in sanitation---sewage and garbage clearing---do not amount to more than two million dollars a month. Considering the number of workers, this amount seems paltry. Yet for each individual employee, the missed salary means the difference between a life with basic necessities, including food, and one without--which is their current reality.
Life for us is miserable. Life is getting more wretched and deplorable by the day. All I can see is garbage. All I can smell here, inside, is the revolting stench of the garbage. It leaves everything with the same sour taste: a taste which is aggravating, persistent, and which harasses even when you are sitting inside your own room, on your own bed. The offensive, reeking stench adds to the curse of being a Palestinian in occupied Palestine today: no money, no food, no peace, and now no breathable air.
Mohammed Omer is a young journalist/photographer in the Gaza Strip. He and his family have a very rough time in living day to day and they have lost much. In October of 2003, one of Mohammed's younger bothers, Issam, was injured and had to have a leg amputated. Later in the same month another younger brother, Hussam Al-Mouhagir, was killed in his home; shot to death by the Israeli Army that occupies and regularly devastates Palestine. These stories are written by Mohammed who knows no peace, only the continued devastation forced upon civilians who have little voice in the world. Mohammed has covered the Occupied Territories for several years. In 2006 Mohammed won the New American Media National Ethnic Media Award for best Youth Voice. Visit Mohammed's Web site, or write to him to get a more complete picture of what is really happening that main-stream news sources rarely brings to its audience. We are proud to feature articles from Mohammed Omer here at BBSNews, his reporting is some of the only original, on the ground reporting available from the Israeli Occupied Territories.
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