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Palestine's water: stolen and destroyed
by Arjan El Fassed
Thursday, Aug. 29, 2002 at 4:38 AM
The root of the water shortage lies in the completely unfair division of the water resources. Under international law, the local water resources need to be divided according to need. In practice, Israel allows the Palestinians only twenty percent of the water from the mountain aquifer – the groundwater system that transects the border of the Westbank – and does not enable Palestinians access to the water from the Jordan River basin, which includes the Sea of Galilee, the streams flowing into the Sea of Galilee, and the Yarmuk River.
Palestine's water: stolen and destroyed
Arjan El Fassed
This summer, like previous summers, Palestinians have been suffering from a severe water shortage. As a result, they are unable to meet basic needs, such as maintaining personal hygiene, house cleaning, and watering their animals, gardens, and crops, which provide a source of food and livelihood for many Palestinian households.
The root of the water shortage lies in the completely unfair division of the water resources. Under international law, the local water resources need to be divided according to need. In practice, Israel allows the Palestinians only twenty percent of the water from the mountain aquifer – the groundwater system that transects the border of the Westbank – and does not enable Palestinians access to the water from the Jordan River basin, which includes the Sea of Galilee, the streams flowing into the Sea of Galilee, and the Yarmuk River.
This has created a chronic water shortage for the Palestinians. The magnitude of the shortage is clearly seen in the vast gap between Israeli and Palestinian per capita home, urban, and industrial water consumption. Whereas the average Palestinian on the West Bank consumes about sixty liters a day, the average Israeli consumes about 350.
The latest Israeli invasion of Palestinian towns, villages and refugee camps have been devastating. Israel's re-occupation of the West Bank resulted in a total of US$ 342 million in physical damages, US$ 7 million of that in the water sector alone.
Running water was prevented from reaching hundreds of thousands of Palestinians for up to two weeks at a time. Most of this destruction was carried out by armed D9 bulldozers. These bulldozers are produced by an American company, Caterpillar, originally designed for large earthworks projects and in common use throughout the world.
In Israel, these bulldozers are built or retrofitted with steel armour plates, tiny bullet-proof cabin windows, special blades and buckets optimized for concrete demolition (of Palestinian homes) and a powerful asphalt-ripper in the rear. The resultant powerhouse machinery towers over standard-size backhoes and other equipment and is the tool of choice for destroying electrical grids, digging up buried water and sewage services, taking out shopfronts and demolishing cars.
The results are impressive - according to the World Bank/Donor's Support Group damages sustained in one month alone under bulldozers ($342M) exceeds the World Bank estimate of $300M in damages (mostly from aerial bombardment) during the first fifteen months of Intifada.
The nature and extent of Israel's destructive operations are clear: systematic digging of trenches across main roads, disrupting water and sewermains and telecommunication lines to Palestinians homes in the affected neighbourhood (approximately 30,000 meters of pipe in all); intentional or collateral damage to pumping facilities (primarily booster pumps located throughout the network); intentional destruction of water transmission lines from wells located outside the city limits (in the case of the Beit Dajan wells feeding Nablus, the transmission line has been destroyed and repaired ten times); obstruction of municipal crews from carrying out emergency repair work (one city worker shot in the shoulder in Nablus, a well operator taken hostage twice in Jenin), and denial of international humanitarian organisations from providing assistance (food, medicine, bottled water) to needy civilians in Nablus, Jenin, Bethlehem, and Qalqilya.
The civilians affected by all of this responded. Palestinians stored water in ad-hoc reservoirs, rationed it to the point of re-using and sharing toothpaste rinse and disposed of excreta in cardboard boxes in a corner of their appartment. While a few reported cases of dehydration were unconfirmed, the more significant risk was of water-related hygenic diseases.
The water shortage is particularly felt in Palestinian villages and rural areas that are not connected to a water network. As of the summer of 2002, more than 200,000 Palestinians were living in more than 200 communities that do not have a water network. These Palestinians rely mostly on rainfall, which is collected on roofs of the houses and in nearby cisterns. This water source is generally sufficient for only a few months (November to May).
During the summer, they collect water from nearby springs (where they exist), using plastic bottles and jerricans, and buy water at high prices from private water tankers. The water they obtain in these ways is poor quality, which affects their health.
Since September 2000, water supplied by the tankers has fallen sharply. The decline is a result of the various restrictions imposed by Israel's occupation army. Israel's re-occupation of Palestinian areas greatly reduced the water supply from tankers that refilled at stations located in areas under curfew, or collective house arrest. Many Palestinians families had to wait prolonged periods for the water to arrive.
Palestinians pay from three to five times more for water from the tankers than for water from a water network. The expenditures on water have always been a heavy financial burden on families living in communities without a water network, who are generally poor. For many families, the financial hardship has been aggravated by the loss of their primary source of income, a result of Israel's measures of collective punishment, the military siege on Palestinian towns, villages and refugee camps.
The large number of Palestinian communities without basic water infrastructure is a result of Israel's deliberate neglect. Israel continues to maintain almost complete control over the water sector in Palestinian areas. Every new water project, from drilling a well to laying pipe, including in Palestinian towns, requires Israeli approval. For a long time, Israel has delayed approving several plans to connect Palestinian communities to a water network.
Palestinians living in communities with a water network also suffer from a water shortage in the summer. The increase in demand causes a fall in water pressure, temporarily preventing water to reach the homes. This phenomenon occurs in many Palestinian communities. To meet this problem, communities throughout the West Bank ration the water, allocating water to households one day every week or two. In this instance, also, the residents have no option other than to purchase water from private tankers that do not operate on a regular basis and charge exorbitant prices.
These methods, applied by Israel's occupation army fall squarely into the category of collective punishment. The 1907 Hague Regulations state that: 'No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible'. This prohibition is expanded and clarified in the Fourth Geneva Convention, which embodies the general principle with regard to such measures, is unambiguous and absolute. It prohibits collective penalties, pillage and reprisals against protected persons and their property.
* Arjan El Fassed lives south of Ramallah, occupied Palestine and works for LAW - The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment