The Palestinians are on the verge of a humanitarian crisis, as the UN warns, not just because of food shortage caused by Israeli closures but also because their agriculture-dependent territories are being sliced from the main water resources by the Israeli separation wall.
"With the wall, the Israelis clearly sought to commandeer water resources," Hind Khury, a former Palestinian cabinet minister responsible for Occupied East Jerusalem and now the government’s representative in Paris, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Sunday, March 19.
"Without water, there is no life. Israeli policy has always been to push Palestinians into the desert," he added.
Israel is monopolizing around 75 percent of Palestinian water resources in the occupied West Bank, a region where rainfall is infrequent and water a strategic asset.
The 700km-long separation wall has cut more than 220 Palestinian communities in the West Bank — around 320,000 people – from main water resources.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are now forced to buy water from trucks — an expense many can ill afford — to supplement local supplies that often fall woefully short of requirements.
Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan rely on the River Jordan which Tel Aviv controls and has cut supplies during times of scarcity.
The International Court of Justice has asked Israel to tear down the barrier, which resulted in the confiscation of 11,4000 dunums (2,850 acres – 1,140 hectares) of privately-owned Palestinian land, and compensate affected Palestinians.
The Israeli separation wall – seen by the Palestinians as a land grab designed to delimit the borders of their future state – is believed to be deliberately built to siphon off their aquifers.
"The route of the wall matches that of water resources, the latter being conveniently located on the Israeli side," said Elisabeth Sime, director of aid organization CARE International in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Abdul Rahman Tamimi, director of the non-governmental Palestinian Hydrology Group, agreed.
"The wall cuts some communities off from their only source of water, prevents tanker trucks from getting around and puts up prices," he said.
He added that in the West Bank city of Qalqilia around 20 wells had been confiscated by Israel, making up 30 percent of the town’s resources, were lost because of the wall.
While agriculture accounts for nearly a third of Palestinian gross domestic product, only five percent of Palestinian land is irrigated.
About 70 percent of Israeli and Jewish settlement land, on the other hand, is watered, even if agriculture amounts to barely two percent of Israel’s GDP.
A recent report by the UN Special Coordinator (UNSCO) blamed Israel’s wall and its network of checkpoints and roadblocks across the occupied West Bank for a "de-development" of the Palestinian economy.
Israel is also being blamed for contaminating water resources by dumping toxic waste on Palestinian lands.
"I often get stomach aches. I throw up. It’s the same for all the children here," said nine-year-old Fatima from the small town of Attil while looking feverishly at her mother Awa.
At least a third of the local drinking water is contaminated by sewage and pesticides, according to AFP.
Doctor Hossam Madi said diarrhea, gastroenteritis, fever, kidney failure, infection and dermatological problems blight most Palestinian children and persist into adulthood because of poor water supplies.
CARE’s Sime agreed.
"The quality of water is getting worse and worse.
"A high proportion of new-born babies die of water-born infections. In the long run, Israelis will be affected by the pollution of water in the Palestinian territories."
In villages such as Jalbun, household, agricultural and industrial waste from Israeli settlements speed up the process of water pollution.
In another development, the United Nations warned Sunday that the Gaza Strip was dangerously facing a looming humanitarian crisis over continued Israeli closures.
"Every day is taking us closer to a humanitarian crisis," said John Ging, the Gaza director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
He said that the Israeli closure of Gaza’s Karni commercial crossing caused his agency to run out of food supplies to distribute to the most impoverished families.
"Flour and wheat are not the only products in short supply. There is a shortage of sugar, oil and many of the other basic commodities.
"If the borders remain closed then everything will begin to become a crisis in itself."
Hundreds of Palestinians lined up outside bakeries in Gaza on Friday, March 17, to buy bread as shop owners complained they were running out of flour because of Israel’s closure of the commercial crossing into the impoverished strip.
Israel has closed Karni for much of the year, citing security concerns. It was last closed on March 13 and Israel says it has no immediate plans to reopen it.
Ging said it was essential to reach an agreement as soon as possible.
"I am calling on everybody who can assist to solve the situation where the borders are closed and the result is that people here in Gaza do not have enough bread, the very basics that are needed to sustain our lives."
The US called a meeting on Sunday to hammer out a solution.
"We’ve taken the initiative to call a meeting between the parties to facilitate the passing of humanitarian goods into Gaza," said Stewart Tuttle, a spokesman for the US embassy in Tel Aviv.
A recent USAID report said Israel’s closure of the Karni crossing has caused steep financial losses and risks an agricultural catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.
NAZLET ISA, West Bank (AFP) –
Israel’s vast separation barrier slices Nazlet Isa off from one of the richest water sources in the arid northern
West Bank where the fight for water is a fight for survival.
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Israel is believed to monopolise around 75 percent of Palestinian water resources in a region where rainfall is infrequent and water a strategic asset.
In the agriculture-dependent Palestinian territories, hemmed in by Jewish settlements, the lack of resources causes havoc for farmers, while pollution and inadequate waste disposal create manifold sanitation and health problems.
In the northern West Bank town of Nazlet Isa, giant concrete slabs 10 metres (33 feet) high — lambasted as an apartheid wall by the Palestinians — have left six homes stranded on the Israeli side along with the rich underground aquifer.
A special system of pipes to access the water was finally built with Israeli permission but immediate access and control has passed into other hands.
"The route of the wall matches that of water resources, the latter being conveniently located on the Israeli side," said Elisabeth Sime, director of aid organisation CARE International, in the
Gaza Strip and West Bank.
The Palestinians are adamant that the wall — which they see anyway as a land grab designed to delimit the borders of their promised future state — was built deliberately to siphon off the aquifer.
Israel says it was built for security reasons to prevent suicide bombers infiltrating Israel or Jewish settlements.
"With the wall, the Israelis clearly sought to commandeer water resources," charges Hind Khury, a former Palestinian cabinet minister responsible for Jerusalem and now the government’s representative in Paris.
"Without water, there is no life. Israeli policy has always been to push Palestinians into the desert," he added.
Abdul Rahman Tamimi, director of the non-governmental Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG), said the coincidence of the route of the wall with the layout of the region’s aquifers was no accident.
"The wall cuts some communities off from their only source of water, prevents tanker trucks from getting around and puts up prices," he said.
In Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank, around 20 wells, or 30 percent of the town’s resources, were lost because of the wall, Tamimi says.
While agriculture accounts for nearly a third of Palestinian gross domestic product, only five percent of Palestinian land is irrigated.
On the other hand, 70 percent of Israeli and Jewish settlement land is watered, even if agriculture amounts to barely two percent of Israeli
GDP.
"The fact that Israel confiscates and overexploits water affects every sector of Palestinian economic life and causes problems for the chances of development in the region and therefore chances of peace," Tamimi said.
More than 220 communities in the West Bank — around 320,000 people — are unconnected to mains water.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are therefore forced to buy water from trucks — an expense many can ill afford — to supplement local supplies that often fall woefully short of requirements.
One such consumer is weather-beaten 76-year-old Nathmi Abdul Ghani. Clutching clumps of soil and turning to the heavens, the grandfather of 100 is desperate. "I can’t go on like this. My land is parched and I’m ruined."
One of the doyens of the northern West Bank village of Saida, he uses expensive water tankers to irrigate his tomatoes, onions and potatoes.
"The Israelis stole our land and took our water," he rages.
In the small town of Attil, at least a third of the local drinking water is contaminated by sewage and pesticides. Nine-year-old Fatima, her eyes misted with fever, routinely falls sick.
Waste and faeces from neighbouring houses run down the hill and seep through the floors and walls of Fatima’s home. They slowly eat away at its foundations and emit a hideous stench.
"I often get stomach ache. I throw up. It’s the same for all the children here," she says looking feverishly at her mother Awa.
Doctor Hossam Madi says diarrhoea, gastroenteritis, fever, kidney failure, infection and dermatological problems blight most Palestinian children and persist into adulthood because of poor water supplies.
"The quality of water is getting worse and worse," said CARE’s Sime.
"A high proportion of new-born babies die of water-born infections. In the long run, Israelis will be affected by the pollution of water in the Palestinian territories."
In villages such as Jalbun, household, agricultural and industrial waste from Israeli settlements speed up the process of water pollution.
Tamimi accuses some Israeli businessmen and settlers of dumping toxic waste on Palestinian land in an act of "environmental terrorism".
