Why water should be on the table http://jfjfp.com/?p=46608&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-water-should-be-on-the-table
 COMPARING WATER USE
Both absolutely and proportionately, Israelis use a far greater amount of the region’s total water resources. Settlers use nearly 600 litres of water each day. Palestinian water use does not even meet the minimum daily standard of 100 litres as recommended by the World Health Organisation.
VIOLATIONS OF PALESTINIANS’ RIGHT TO WATER
With no piped water, Palestinian boys fetch it to load onto their water carrier, a donkey. Photo by Issam Rimawi / APA images.
While Israelis and settlers get continuous water supply from Mekorot all year-round at subsidized prices, Palestinians face these situations:
• Irregular water supply across the West Bank, particularly in the water-scarce summer months.
• Depleted/contaminated/salinated water in Gaza because of over-extraction of the Coastal Aquifer – due in part to the fact that Palestinians are not allowed to develop or repair water infrastructure.
• Water distribution network losses of 30 –50% because of deteriorating networks and leaky pipes in dire need of repair.
• No piped water at all for 215,000 Palestinians in 150 West Bank villages (26% of West Bank households).
• Many Palestinians must buy water – either from Mekorot, or from private suppliers selling expensive and unregulated trucked water. Even within the oPt, Mekorot’s prices are different for Palestinians and Israeli settlers.
SINCE THE SECOND INTIFADA: IN THE NAME OF “SECURITY”
• Destruction of water infrastructure. The Israeli army have bulldozed pipelines and destroyed at least 15 wells in the West Bank and Gaza since September 2000 – eliminating the largest water source for many Palestinian villages and towns. Between March and May of 2002 alone, the World Bank, UNDP and USAID estimate that damage to West Bank water supply and sewerage infrastructure by the Israeli military reached US$7 million.
• Limited access to trucked water. Israel’s policy of ‘closure’ severely limits access to water carriers in a context where more than a third of all Palestinians rely on buying water from private or municipal tankers for their water needs.
• Increased price of water. Water tankers delayed at checkpoints raise their prices by almost 80% because of the increased transportation time due to closure. With 70-90% of the workforce unemployed, Palestinians spend as much as 39% of their household expenditure on purchasing water.
• Ban on drilling wells. In October 2002, Israeli infrastructure minister Effi Eitam banned Palestinians from drilling for water and placed a freeze on the issue of future permits for wells.
• Separation from water sources. In June of 2002, the Israeli government authorized a plan to build a ‘security wall’ – more accurately referred to as a ‘Separation Wall’ or ‘Apartheid Wall’ – with electric fences, trenches and security patrols along the entire 220 mile length of the West Bank. However, the Wall is not being built along the ‘Green Line’ (the de facto pre-1967 border between Israel and the West Bank) – but rather inside the West Bank.
The Wall separates thousands of Palestinians from their land and water sources. In the first phase of the wall, several agriculture-dependent villages in the northern West Bank will lose access to 30 groundwater wells.
• Increase in water-borne diseases: Recent surveys have found infection rates from waterrelated diseases as high as 64% in certain communities in the West Bank. A recent study shows that over a quarter of rural households in the West Bank has a member suffering from diarrhoea; over half of these households had not had adequate bathing water for over two weeks
POLLUTION OF PALESTINIAN WATER SOURCES BY ISRAEL
• Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza are mostly located on hilltops and dump manure, untreated sewage and wastewater into the valleys – polluting Palestinian water sources and agricultural land. According to 1997 figures from the West Bank, settlers were 6 times more polluting that Palestinians (300,000 settlers produced 30 mcm of wastewater a year, while in the same period, 1,870,000 Palestinians produced 31 mcm of wastewater).
• Highly polluting Israeli industries are being relocated to the West Bank (again, on hilltops) to avoid Israeli environmental regulations. At least 200 industries in 7 industrial zones in the West Bank send untreated industrial effluents and wastewater into Palestinian streams and agricultural land.
• In February 2001, Israel discharged 3.5 million cubic meters of untreated wastewater mixed with rainwater into northern Gaza strip towns.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
The Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG) haslaunched the Palestine Water for Life Campaign to promote worldwide awareness of the water and sanitation situation in Palestine, as well as todevelop coordinated, comprehensive responses to the water crisis among donor, development, relief, human rights, and other NGOs. Please visit the campaign website at www.phg.org/campaign for more information about how you can support their efforts.
The Palestinian Environmental NGO Network (PENGON) has initiated the Apartheid Wall Campaign to raise awareness of andorganize opposition to the “Separation Wall” which is threatening Palestinians’ access to and control over their own water resources. Learn more about the Campaign and how to support PENGON at www.pengon.org.
 Nurturing Water Apartheid in Palestine Israel’s water company Mekorot Factsheet by Stop the Wall