An Arab League report released Sunday indicated that Israel is the
cause of the water problems in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and
controls 80 percent the water resources. The study was conducted by the
Arab Center of Water Studies in the Arab League.
The project focused on Israel's control and use of Palestinian water, and that of Jordan and Syria. “Israel seeks to control most of the water resources in the Golan Heights and southern Lebanon, the last of which was only meters away from the cease-fire line between Syria and Israel.”
The report read that the amount of water used by Israel is estimated at about two billion cubic meters, of which 65 percent comes from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
The sources pointed out that Israeli water comes through rivers, including the Jordan, groundwater, and reservoirs. Palestinian water comes from rain, wells and springs, and is limited, yet the Israelis still seized more than 80 percent of Palestinian water.
The report stated that “Israel adopted the scheme to loot a high volume of Arab water in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine, and since the aggression of June-June 1967 Israel is exploiting water in the occupied territories. Water has always been one of the most important motives that drives the strategy of the Israeli military.”
There are 850 million cubic meters of water available in the West Bank and Gaza Strip annually, but Palestinians do not use more than 120 million cubic meters of their own water as the Israeli government diverts it. Israelis consume four times the water that Palestinians do and settlers in the West Bank consume seven times more than the residents of the West Bank do. “Israel takes 500 million cubic meters annually from water reserves in the West Bank, which accounts for approximately one third of Israel's consumption. The Wall route also corresponds in 100 percent of cases to the location of Palestinian water resources, now annexed into Israeli boundaries.”
