The “World Water Day” which is observed on March 22 every year has come as Israel still persists in its inhumane practices against the Palestinian water resources especially in the Jordan Valley.
Human rights groups and Palestinian institutions affiliated with the government also continue to denounce and appeal for international action against Israel’s ongoing control and exploitation of the Palestinian water resources.
Mohamed al-Haroub a farmer from Bazeigh hamlet in the northern Jordan Valley told the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) about the local residents’ suffering from Israeli restrictions on the use of water to meet their daily needs.
Haroub recalled the day when Israeli soldiers appropriated his water container and his tractor and arrested him on a charge of transporting water for his livestock. The soldiers he said claimed there was a ban on Palestinians carrying out water infrastructural projects in the Jordan Valley.
He said that with a sigh while looking sadly at nearby Jewish settlement communities which are fed by natural springs running under his feet.
In fact the occupying power Israel controls 85 percent of the Palestinian water resources and prevents the Palestinian Authority from extracting and pumping water from its territories to meet the needs of its citizens and even from treating wastewater and using it for agriculture field researcher Mazen Awwad told the PIC.
“The [water] situation is in decline. The Palestinians’ quota of water has remained largely constant since the signing of the Oslo Accords while there is an increase in the number of the population and their water needs” Awwad added.
Shocking figures
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) Israel has imposed its control over the bulk of renewable water resources in Palestine which amounts to 750 million cubic meters not to mention its control of the water resources in the Jordan River Tiberias and the Dead Sea.
In addition to that Israel gets water from non-shared aquifers and unconventional resources such as treated and desalinated water.
The Palestinians in turn get about 110 million cubic meters although their share of the three aquifers according to the Oslo Accords is 118 million cubic meters which was supposed to become 200 million cubic meters by 2000 the PCBS said.
Israel also limits Palestinians’ access to water resources and imposes conditions and restrictions on drilling wells and carrying out water projects especially in Area C which constitutes about 60 percent of the West Bank.
As for the impoverished Gaza Strip UN reports have warned of the gravity of its deteriorating water situation affirming that its aquifer has been severely depleted.
One of those reports said Gaza would become unsuitable for human life by 2020 because of the worsening water environmental and health conditions there.
The Gaza coastal aquifer is being exposed to great depletion and the annual water deficit reaches more than 100 million cubic meters the report warns.
The Palestinians’ daily per capita consumption of water amounts to 73 liters per year which is four times less than the Israeli individual’s share according to other international reports issued by the World Bank and Amnesty.
