“Some 450,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians that live there… In times of drought, in contravention of international law, the settlers get priority for water… Israel’s territorial expansion is seen as a ‘water occupation’ of both streams and aquifers…”
water
Everyday, throughout the sections of the West Bank exclusively under Israel’s control (Area C), rain water harvesting cisterns face administrative demolition orders from the Israeli Civil Administration due to the lack of building permits. Cisterns are vital to the livelihoods of marginalized Palestinian rural and herder communities in the West Bank who rely on them to provide water for livestock, crops and sometimes for domestic water usage in the absence of an adequate network connection. Since 2009, a total of 44 cisterns and rainwater collection structures in Area C have been demolished, twenty of them between January and July of 2011.
Israel exploits the natural resources in the Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea more than in the rest of the West Bank and prevents Palestinians from using most of the area’s land and water resources.
Israeli Border Police: “Instead of the family acting responsibly toward a child and removing him from the situation, they chose to make cheap anti-Israel propaganda, whose sole purpose is to present us in a negative light around the world… the authorities on site acted lawfully against the unacceptable phenomenon of water theft.”
IOA Editor: For Reasons of State, the Occupation “authorities” controlling Palestinian “sites” by military force, again prevented the lawful residents of said “sites” from using their most precious national resource: Water.
Israeli border police destroyed several Palestinian fields in Al Beqa’a Valley just east of Hebron on 6 July 2010, directly affecting the livelihood of more than one hundred Palestinians.
Amira Hass: Under the cover of the incessant noise from the roads in the Hebron district, an anonymous Arab is perpetrating a serious crime: With a small hammer, he is digging a cistern so he can collect rainwater on his rocky land.
The Portugese company EPAL collaborates with Israeli water companies violating international law in the occupied West Bank.
Amnesty:
-450,000 West Bank and E. Jerusalem settlers consume as much as or more water than the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
-Palestinian per capita consumption of 70 litres per day compares with the WHO recommended level of 100 litres and Israeli consumption of 300.
-180,000 to 200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities, especially in the Israeli controlled “Area C” (60% of the West Bank), have no running water.
-The Israeli military “often” prevents them from accessing rainwater by destroying water-harvesting cisterns or even confiscating water tankers.
Israelis, Palestinians work together: The Occupier and the Occupied.
IOA Editor: Very important coverage of Israeli policies intended to make life impossible for Palestinians in the West Bank – a key part of the greater offensive on the future of Palestine: By taking over land and shutting off access to natural resources, Israel can shut off the future for the Palestinians in Palestine.
The original Hebrew version header of this article read “200 West Bank villages are not connected to a pipe. That’s how Israel is drying out the residents of the PA”.
