October 17, 2010





Thousands of liters of raw sewage from the illegal Gush Etzion settlement flooded over 50 dunams of Palestinian farmland in the village of Beit Ommar last night. The sewage was pumped from a storage unit inside the settlement onto the land of the Sabarna family, flooding trees and submerging a bulldozer. As of 10 AM the water is still flooding.

Today marks the fourth time this year that the settlement has dumped waste water onto the Sabarna�s land. The settlement emptied sewage onto their land in March, April and June, destroying the crops and costing the farmers thousands of shekels in lost income.



The flooding poses a major health hazard to the village residents. Members of the Awwad family, whose bulldozer was submerged, waded knee deep in the sewage to pull out the bulldozer, and ground soil contamination creates major health risks for local residents.