2000
Palestinians say water vital
to success of peace (Jordan Times, 22/09/2000)
Palestinians launched a $110 million
US-funded water project on Thursday by warning that any peace deal they
conclude with Israel will evaporate unless they have equal access to scarce
water resources.
“We are in a very bad situation,”
Palestinian Water Authority Chairman Nabil Sharif told a water conference.
“Unless the United States will do everything possible to convince the Israelis,
at the end there will be no real peace if there is no water. If there will
be no water, I don't think any agreement of peace will live more than two
or three years.”
Water resources have been prominent
in Israeli-Palestinian talks since the peace process was launched in 1991,
with water-sharing principles contained in accords in 1993, 1994 and 1995.
Palestinians say Israel controls water access in the West Bank and Gaza,
where they aim to set up the state this year.
The US Agency for International
Development project launched on Thursday includes a waste treatment plant
in part of the West Bank where waste discharges have contaminated an aquifer.
It also will pipe water to about 40,000 Palestinians. “It shows the connection
between peace efforts and efforts to better the daily lives of all the
peoples in this region,” US Consul General Ron Schlicher told the meeting.
Asked to respond to reports Israeli
settlements were using water unfairly, Schlicher told Reuters: “I think
that entire subject is something that the Palestinians and the Israelis
will address together in their negotiations.”
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators
resumed talks on a final peace deal on Wednesday to try to resolve core
issues such as the capital and borders of a future Palestinian state.
Water shortfall
Sharif said the Israelis refused
to address a Palestinian shortfall of 483 million cubic metres, and that
Palestinians consume one third as much water per capita as Israelis, who
also use about six times more for irrigation.
Asked to respond, an Israeli Water
Commission spokesperson said Israel itself suffers from a water shortage
because of low rainfall and will start importing water in November.
“We are in the middle of negotiations
on everything including the issue of water,” she said. “Israel and the
Palestinians both have a problem of water.” As for consumption, she said:
“It's a way of life. If you take the numbers it's true they are not using
the same amount. “But it's not that they are asking and we are not giving.”
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said 215,000 Palestinians in more
than 150 villages are not connected to running water, and that Israel has
discriminatory allocation. “At a time when the Israeli public debates whether
to water the lawn or wash their car, Palestinians suffer from a shortage
of water to meet their most basic needs,” the statement said.
Majdi Khaldi, the Palestinian planning
ministry's director general, said it was true that inadequate water access
could destabilise any final peace deal. “The water issue is a problem in
the whole Middle East but in the case of the Palestinian-Israeli problem,
we want to have control of our aquifers in the West Bank and Gaza.”
Israel, Palestine water resources
down the drain (Jordan Times, 12/07/2000)
While Israelis
and Palestinians talk peace at US President Bill Clinton's lush Camp David
retreat, their water supply back home is going down the drain, an Israeli
expert said on Tuesday. “After several years of drought, there simply isn't
water, and according to all the measurements the situation is getting worse,”
said Yossi Bar-On, deputy director of infrastructure for Israel's environment
ministry. “(Israeli and Palestinian leaders) can talk about refugees and
so on, but without water there will be no quality of life for anyone,”
Bar-On told Reuters.
Environmental
experts say Israel has only itself to blame if its taps run dry in a few
months, as Environment Minister Dalia Itzik cautioned on Monday. All three
of Israel's main water sources — the Sea of Galilee, a coastal aquifer
and a West Bank mountain aquifer shared with the Palestinians — are dangerously
depleted, Bar-On said.
But the issue
is not only one of quantity. “We are now in a situation where those three
sources are empty, that is they have gotten to the red lines past which
there is a danger they will be irremediably contaminated by salt deposits,”
a spokeswoman in Bar-On's office said.
Israelis developed
a taste for water as they pursued a Zionist dream of “making the desert
bloom.” But the influx of nearly a million immigrants in the past decade
and a culture of swimming pools, suburban gardens and two showers a day
may soon bring the desert back.
“We will get
very quickly to the desertification of Israel,” Bar-On said when asked
what would happen if 2001 proved to be a year of low or even average rainfall.
His office is begging Israelis to quit their guzzling. A campaign launched
on bus banners, national radio and television urges: “We must save water,
we must.”
Spilling water
like spilling blood
Below-average
rainfall since 1992 and increased consumption mean that water has come
to the top of the list of issues yet to be solved in Israeli-Palestinian
peace talks. And both sides will soon find that spilling water is almost
akin to spilling blood in the arid Middle East.
Israel's B'Tselem
human rights group said individual Palestinians get 30 per cent less water
than the 100 litres a day recommended by the World Health Organisation,
while Israelis each use an average of 348 litres a day.
In the West Bank
and Gaza Strip, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, Palestinian
municipalities provide water on a rotating basis or residents buy water
from trucks at prices far beyond most of their means.
Israeli water
officials say they do more than fulfil their obligation to provide water
to the Palestinians according to the 1993 breakthrough Oslo interim agreement.
They say the Palestinians misallocate water and pollute it by overpumping,
mishandling sewage and damaging aquifers by drilling wells.
Palestinians
charge that Israel controls their water access and unfairly withholds it
from them. “Their situation is much worse because they draw water from
certain parts of the mountain aquifer, and they get a lot less of it per
person” Bar-On said.
Water a vexed issue for Israel,
Palestinians (Jordan Times, 07/07/00)
There is dust,
plenty of it, along the West Bank road where Taiseer Ashoor lives near
the Palestinian village of Yatta. What is lacking for the 30-year-old cobbler
and his household of seven adults and 14 children is water. In the politically
charged context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, water is no mere environmental
problem. It's one of the tough issues to vex Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat when they meet at a US-brokered
summit at Camp David next week.
Palestinian officials
charge that Israel ultimately controls their water access and unfairly
withholds it from them. “You see, there is nothing,” Ashoor said, twisting
the valve on the empty pipes that connect to the municipal water supply.
His house, like many in the village, is on a rigid schedule and receives
water service only a few days a month. The water arrives in a delivery
truck. It costs him about 450 shekels ($113) a month, nearly a quarter
of his income.
Basic needs
versus swimming pools
Across Yatta,
villagers complain that while they cannot meet the most basic needs of
their families, Israelis in a neighbouring Jewish settlement have enough
for swimming pools, flower gardens and new farming projects.
“There is discrimination
between Israeli settlers and the Palestinians, not only in Yatta but in
Ramallah and Gaza as well,” said Yousef Abu Safieh, Palestinian minister
of environmental affairs.
“There is no
equity in (water) access, and that is why this is one of the issues that
we are now discussing in final status negotiations with the Israelis,”
he said.
Limited water
resources are not new to the arid Middle East, but below-average winter
rainfall has pushed the region into drought.
Israeli meteorological
officials estimate the 1998 rainfall deficit at 50 per cent, and 10 per
cent this past year. The Yatta municipality buys water from the Palestinian
Water Authority, but Israeli water provider Mekorot first sells the water
to the Palestinian government.
Israel's B'Tselem
advocacy group for Palestinian rights said Palestinian individuals get
30 per cent less water than the 100 litres a day recommended by the World
Health Organisation, while Israelis use 348 litres a day.
“We ask for more
water from the Palestinian Water Authority, but they have no control over
resources,” said Yatta official Nassar Rabei. He said 14 neighbourhoods
have to rotate water access, affecting businesses as well.
“Because there
is no industry or high-tech (commerce) here, agriculture is our only product,”
Rabei said. “So the people have only two choices: They can be day workers
in Israel, or they can work their own lands.”
Abu Safieh said
Palestinians also paid up to seven times more than the Jewish settlers,
whose rates were subsidised by Israel. Increased Palestinian demand due
to population growth had been ignored, he said.
Israelis tell
a different story
Israeli water
officials and settler leaders say Palestinians have no one to blame for
shortages but Palestinian leaders.
“We allocate
according to the (1993) interim agreement...and even 20 per cent more,”
said Israeli Water Commission Manager Noga Blitz. “And it is not an allocation
problem, it is a Palestinian distribution problem. We don't interfere.”
The Palestinians
refused to adopt environmental practices that would preserve water resources,
said Yehudith Tayar, a spokeswoman for the settlers. They overpumped water,
mishandled sewage and damaged aquifers by drilling wells, she said.
In Yatta, where
even the fire company has to carefully manage its limited water reserves,
27-year-old Khawla Younes, a mother of three, considers herself among the
fortunate. “We can deal with it because we have made a well and we can
buy water and fill it, but not all families can,” she said.
“We need water
to wash, to clean dishes, to look after the baby,” she said.
“The Palestinian
people don't want to be a problem. They are not thinking of war. They only
think, `How can I make my life better and safer? And how can I live here
with my children?'”
Palestinian Official Asks for
USAID for Water Projects (Al Quds, 1/9/1999)
(FBIS Translated Text - prepared
by Rex Brynen, send through PALDEV newsgroup) Engineer Nabil al-Sharif,
the head of the Palestinian Water Authority, has called on the donor countries
to offer more support so that the figures on the agreements signed with
the Israeli side, which amount to 70 to 80 million cubic meters, could
be converted in to actual flowing water. He said that what has been received
so far is not enough because it is very costly to dig wells, lay water
pipelines, build reservoirs, construct pumping stations, and establish
main water networks.
In an exclusive statement to Al-Quds,
al-Sharif said we have dug four wells in the south, two of which are operational.
In the next two months, the remaining two wells will be operated to serve
Bethlehem and Hebron.
Another well was dug in Nabulus
and another in Janin, while another is being dug to serve Ramallah. He
said we are following a European and US aid program to dig eight new wells.
Nabil al-Sharif added that Israel
is exploiting 80 percent of the Palestinian underground water reserve.
He added that if the withdrawal from the West Bank is total and if the
[Palestinian National] Authority [PNA] returns to the 1967 borders, we
will not need to desalinate water until the year 2025. At present, he said,
Israelis are consuming a minimum of 110 cubic meters of water per capita
per year while Palestinians are consuming a maximum of 35 cubic meters
per capita per year. He said that the issue of electricity and water is
related to the issue of sovereignty on the land. He called on the municipalities
to benefit from the conference that will be held in Gaza next week under
the title of "The Conference of Mayors: The Development of Municipalities
and the Exchange of Palestinian and European Expertise." He stressed that
the conference will be an occasion and an opportunity to benefit from European
expertise in the role played by European municipalities in the service
of the public.
From the WAFA Report (31/8/99).
The Israeli side is delaying the
activities of the joint high water committee. The engineer Fadel Ka'wash,
the vice head of the water authority stated yesterday that recently they
are encountering a delay from the Israeli side concerning the water issue.
He clarified that a great delay was encountered during the meetings of
the water committee, especially during discussing the projects presented
by the Palestinian side. In his speech to Wafa, he affirmed that, despite
of the refusal of the high technical committee upon many of the projects
presented by the Israeli side, especially those projects related to the
settlements, the Israeli side is implementing many of them. On the other
hand, he confirmed that the Palestinian side is completely committed to
the signed agreement and its supplements. He added that the strike of the
employees of the Israeli water Corporation, Mekorot, has lead to the deterioration
of the water crisis at many Palestinian residential compounds which are
dependant upon the water supplied by the Israeli Corporation. He affirmed
that the main controversial issue is the insistence of the Israeli side
on maintaining control on almost all the Palestinian water resources. Mr.
Ka'wash confirmed that the Palestinian side is sticking to its fixed stand
concerning the right of the Palestinians to have complete control on their
water resources. The Gush Katif settlers took hold of additional plots
of land in Khan Younes Yesterday, the Gush Katif settlers took hold of
additional plots of land in Khan Younes city. They settled large cement
cubes and military fortifications there. The settlers have made many previous
attempts to widen this settlement.
Zionists arrogate water sources
in West Bank, Gaza; leave Palestinians thirsty (Hamas News, 26/08/99)
Occupied Jerusalem- A Palestinian
consumer protection organization has castigated the Zionist occupation
authorities for using an apartheid approach in distributing drinking water
to Arabs and Jews in Israel. According to the organizations' secretary,
Massoud Subraki, the average Arab citizen in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
receives only 40 litters of water per day while the average Jewish citizen
receives 300 litters per day. Subarki said the Israeli occupation authorities
adopted racist considerations when pumping water to Arab and Jewish towns
and villages. He pointed out that some Arab localities in the West Bank
have had any drinking water from the Israeli Water Authority since the
beginning of summer, forcing the inhabitants to purchase water inflated
high prices from Jewish settlements or fetch water from surface springs
that are often contaminated with micro organisms. Yaser Arafat's Palestinian
Authority agreed to defer the water issues to the final status talks.
Depleting water resources in
Israel and Palestine (Ha'aretz, 20/8/1999, prepared by Israel Information
Service).
Ha'aretz is concerned about the
possibility of depleting water resources for Israel and the Palestinian
Authority, with Israel's two primary aquifers being "most vulnerable to
environmental damage caused by human endeavor." Moreover, over-pumping
has increased the potential threat to the quality of available water, whose
salt content is in danger of rising beyond the point at which it may be
consumed. Looking for a solution to this daunting problem, the paper wishes
to encourage efforts to reduce pollution, implement salination programs,
and re-examine the pricing structure of water resources. Additionally,
the editors call for consideration of proposals favoring "more flexible
allocation of water to farmers" -- offering assistance in lean years, but
making water less expensive only in the event that sufficient rainfall
increases the supply of water at Israel's disposal.
Water issue percolates as another
threat to Mideast peace (Laura King, Associated Press, 8/8/1999)
TSURIF, West Bank - The patriarch
of a Palestinian family peers mournfully into the well behind his home,
lowering and lowering a plastic bucket until he is rewarded - finally -
with a faint splash. He draws it up and carefully washes a bunch of grapes
to offer to visitors.
"It should be full of sweet water,"
says Mohammed Laham, sliding the wooden cover back onto the well. "Instead"
- he gestures toward a tiled inscription reading "God is great" - "we wonder
every day whether we will have anything to drink."
In this part of the world, water
is a quarrel as old as the stony biblical hills. But with Israel and its
neighbors weathering the worst drought in decades, it has become a growing
source of political tension - one that could threaten the climate of hope
and good will Palestinians see generated by the peace overtures of Israel's
new prime minister, Ehud Barak.
The Palestinians angrily blame Israel
for water shortages plaguing dozens of their towns and villages this summer.
Neighboring Jordan was upset when Israel reneged on nearly half its water-supply
commitment this year. And as
long-stalled peace efforts with
Syria move forward, many Israelis fear territorial concessions could cost
them water as well.
"It's an economic commodity. It's
a political tool. It's a weapon," says Hillel Shuval, a professor of environmental
science at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "No one can be neutral when
it comes to water."
Barak himself has acknowledged that
water will be one of the more difficult issues as he moves on several peace
fronts at once. He is seeking to end the state of war that technically
exists with Syria, to negotiate terms of
statehood with the Palestinians
and to bring new warmth into what has become a chilly peace with Jordan
and Egypt.
Of all the points of Israeli-Palestinian
friction, few are as entwined in Palestinians' daily routine as the water
shortage. Israel controls 80 percent of the aquifers in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, and as the drought has dragged on through the summer, many
Palestinian towns and villages have water only one or two days a week.
When water is available, the pressure
is so low that people living at higher elevations have to trek down to
lower ones to fetch water, or have it delivered by tanker. "I do this 10
or 15 times a day," says laborer Mohammed al Qaiseh, balancing a heavy
plastic jerrycan of water on his shoulder as he trudges up a narrow, winding
street in the Deheishe refugee camp just outside the West Bank town of
Bethlehem. To supply his family of eight, he hauls water from the home
of a neighbor who lives downhill, about 150 yards away, and has enough
water pressure to use the taps.
Frustration over the shortages boiled
over into unrest recently in Deheishe, when several hundred people burned
tires, blocked roads and chanted demands for more water. Palestinian officials
say Israel provides each Palestinian with 2.6 gallons of water daily -
one-fifth the international standard.
In Tsurif, a town of 12,000 people
near Hebron, local officials say the water supply has dwindled to about
one-seventh of normal. Plastic water containers clutter the balconies of
modest stone houses. Almost everyone on the streets in the heat of midday
- an old man on a donkey, a little boy running an errand for his mother
- carries a plastic bucket in case of a chance to fill it from a tanker
making its rounds. "People wake up at two or three o'clock in the morning
to try their water and see if it is running," says Hamad al-Hoor, a member
of the town council. Asking people in Tsurif how the water shortage has
affected their family is an invitation to open the floodgates. A knot of
people quickly gathers, telling of prized vegetable gardens withered and
brown, the huge pile of dirty dishes that sat unwashed for days after a
village wedding, the embarrassment in big families over being unable to
flush the toilet. "It shames me that I can't keep my kitchen clean," says
Aziyeh Mohammed, using a trickle of water from a pitcher to try to scrub
a pot caked with the remnants of the chicken-and-rice lunch she has just
cooked.
Palestinian officials say that apart
from daily hardship, the shortage has worrisome long-term effects. Because
of overpumping, groundwater in the Gaza Strip is dropping six to eight
inches a year, and salt-water intrusion now extends several miles inland
from the Mediterranean, says Riyadh al-Khoudary, head of the Palestinian
water delegation whose talks with Israel were halted 2 1/2 years ago under
the previous government of Benjamin Netanyahu. In some areas, Gaza's drinking-water
supply has 10 times the sodium content considered safe, leading to health
problems like kidney ailments and hypertension, health officials say. Gaza
purchases about 1.3 billion gallons of water a year from Israel. But Khoudary
and others believe existing supplies would be adequate if not for intensive
pumping by a string of Jewish settlements inside Gaza and just across the
border in Israel. "First they take our water, and then we buy it back,"
he says bitterly. Israel insists Palestinians bear some of the blame because
they have not rehabilitated the decrepit water system in the West Bank
and Gaza, leading to significant loss from leakage. Palestinians say they
are moving as fast as they can to counter the effects of three decades
of neglect of pipes and pumping stations during the Israeli occupation.
Israel also accuses Palestinians
of holding up water projects that would benefit dozens of Palestinian towns
and villages because they would serve Jewish settlements as well. "It's
a severe humanitarian issue," says Peter Lerner, spokesman for the Israeli
civil administration in the West Bank. "But the Palestinians have certainly
not worked to the fullest to confront it."
Palestinians rankle at what they
consider excessive Israeli water consumption.
Israeli water commissioner Meir
Ben Meir - who infuriated many Palestinians when he
opined last year that their lifestyle requires less water than that
of Israelis - acknowledges that no rationing is envisioned for Israeli
cities, but says the agricultural allotment has been cut by 40 percent.
"We are feeling the effects, too," he says.
Water is also a crucial question
as Barak seeks to reopen negotiations with Syria, which broke down three
years ago. The heart of the dispute is the Golan Heights, the main source
of water to the Jordan River and adjacent to
the Sea of Galilee, which provides
Israel with one-third of its drinking water.
Associates of the new prime minister
say keeping Israeli control of these water sources would be a "red line"
in any Golan talks.
But Shuval, the Hebrew University
expert, says he believes the water question can be worked out through negotiations.
Syria will not push too hard to gain control of Jordan River water, because
it would be too expensive and impractical to pump it to the high elevations
where Syria has farm land, he argues. And the cash value of the water in
question is only about $10 million a year, he adds. "That's not enough
to go to war over," he says. "It's an amount to make a deal over."
Israel cuts water supplies to
Hebron by two thirds. (Hamas News, 30/6/1999).
Occupied Jerusalem- The Israeli
occupation authorities in the West Bank have reduced water supplies to
the Palestinian town of Hebron to one third of the normal amount, Palestinian
sources said.
The sources said the Israeli authorities
reduced water supplies to Hebron from 750 cubic meters per hour to only
250 cubic meters per hour. The slashed 500 cubic meters will reportedly
be given to Jewish settlements in the Hebron area.
A spokesman for the Hebron municipal
council condemned the Israeli measure, calling it 'racist'. "They treat
us as nothings, they think that only Jews deserve to drink clean water,
and let non-Jews go to hell," said the spokesman.
Most of West Bank waters are arrogated
by the settlers. According to human rights organizations, the Palestinians
get only 20% of their own waters, while the remaining eighty per cent go
to Israeli cities and settlements. In the West Bank, an average Jewish
settlers receives fifteen times more water than an average Palestinian
does. Hence, a small Jewish settlement like Kiryat Arba'a, with a population
of less than five thousand settlers, receives double the amount of water
that the entire city of al Khalil (Hebron) receives. Hebron has a population
of over 170,000 Palestinians.
PA rejects Israeli water proposal;
crisis feared (Middle East Newsline, 22/06/1999).
TEL AVIV [MENL] -- The Palestinian
Authority has rejected an Israeli proposal to supply Bethlehem with water
as officials fear a new crisis.
Israeli officials said in talks
on Monday with Palestinian counterparts they have offered to provide water
to Bethlehem from neighboring Jerusalem or the nearby community of Betar.
They said the PA rejected the offer and demanded to drill wells.
Brig.-Gen. Dov Tsadaka, head of
Israel's Civil Administration, said the PA is not making sufficient efforts
to receive the amount of water being proposed by Israel. He did not say
how much water was being offered by Israel. Tsadaka said the PA has refused
to refurbish the aging water system in the Bethlehem area. He said the
PA has destroyed a reservoir in the area but has not built an alternative
facility.
PA officials responded that the
Israeli demands were excessive and that Palestinians need immediate water
to ease the current drought. They have demanded that Israel allow the Palestinians
to drill 28 new wells.
Israeli officials said theft of
water in the West Bank is widespread. They said much of the water meant
for the Bethlehem area is stolen by Palestinians as far south as Hebron.
Palestinian and Israeli officials
acknowledge that the current drought has resulted in a severe water shortage
in the West Bank. But PA officials said the main cause for the shortage
is the Israeli water policy that favors Jewish settlements over Palestinian
communities.
PA officials said that the Hebron
region has been sustaining water shortages since February. They said that
most Hebron-area residents are forced to buy tanks of water to make up
for the shortfall. The officials said the lack of water has caused severe
damage to Palestinian agriculture. In many areas of the West Bank, they
said, farmers can no longer water their crops.
Mohammed Jaabari, a Hebron businessman,
said, that Jewish settlers sell their water to Palestinians at inflated
prices. "We don't know what to do and to whom to turn," Jaabari said in
a radio interview.
Zvi Katsover, head of the Kiryat
Arba municipal council, a settlement outside Hebron, said Palestinians
steal some 12,000 cubic meters of water, thus denying water to both Jewish
settlements and Palestinian communities.
On Tuesday, a U.S.-sponsored water
distribution network was launched in the West Bank town of Salfit. the
21-kilometer network would provide running water to the entire town as
well as the surrounding area in an $800,000 project financed by the U.S.
Agency for International Development.
Hamas planned to poison Israeli
water resources (Israel Line, 18/06/1999).
Hamas plotted to cause a national
epidemic by poisoning the drinking water in Israel with chemicals, YEDIOT
AHARONOT reported. During Israel Defense Forces interrogations, arrested
military head Mohammed Abu Tir revealed that Addle Awadalla, the chief
commander of the military branch of Hamas, was responsible for masterminding
the plot.
(...)
Netanyahu on water and a Palestinian
state (from: Fatah
Online, 15/05/1999).
(...)
As for Netenyahu, he made his stand
clear in a speech he delivered at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policies, on May 8 of last year:
(...)
The state Palestinians want to establish
threatens our water resources.
Forty per cent of our water basins
are in areas that Palestinians want to have under their control. I don't
want to decide on the right of the Palestinians to demand a state in final
negotiations. I'm telling you what our stance will be. We are calling for
a practical solution whereby we obtain security while Palestinians acquire
whatever they need [namely, "autonomy", Fatah Online] to run their own
affairs, unless Israel's security is threatened.
(...)
Report on Water Shortage,
Projects in Gaza (Ramallah Al-Ayyam, 1/5/1999).
Engineer Nabil al-Sharif, Head of
the Palestinian Water Authority, has said the authority seeks to establish
three
desalination plants in the Gaza
strip.
In an exclusive statement to WAFA,
al-Sharif said the establishment of these plants, in addition to building
water reservoirs in the strip, are aimed at meeting the growing needs of
citizens in the future and securing part of their needs via the Israeli
company Micrut. He added that the Water Authority also seeks to develop
waste water
plants and collect rainwater in
the Northern region while feeding underground reservoirs in certain areas
to counter water shortage. He pointed out that 19 million Euro currency
units have been allocated to establish a waste water treatment plant in
Rafah.
Al-Sharif stated that the problem
of salinity is not new but is aggravating each day as a result of the increasing
consumption and the drainage of the stored underground rainwater and other
sources. He explained that despite the difficult and costly solution, the
Water Authority began to dig many wells to help municipalities provide
the citizens with potable water across the territories of the Palestinian
Authority [PA] in Janin, Nablus, Hebron, Ramallah, Gaza, and other governorates.
He went on to say that the most important steps to solve the water problem
in general and the problem of salinity in particular are confined to the
following: monitoring the provisions of water networks to reduce wastage
and depletion, treating waste water to reutilize it in agriculture and
industry, desalinating water by various techniques, exploiting rainwater,
digging new wells in suitable areas, and adopting an ambitious water policy
that meets the future needs of the citizens.
Al-Sharif stressed that a final
solution to the water problem is not an easy thing, particularly that we
are witnessing an intricate political situation. He pointed out that the
first thing we are seeking is to attain our historical water rights. Until
that is achieved, the Water Authority is trying to find alternative sources
and improve the quality of water by digging many wells or establishing
desalination plants. He went on to say, "We are about to use waste water
in agriculture gradually and according to accurate specifications to guarantee
the success of this experiment in agriculture that would save us huge quantities
of pure water, which depletes the underground storage used for drinking
purposes.
On desalinating seawater, al-Sharif
explained that it is extremely costly. He said the economic situation and
the per capita income make it impossible to adopt the desalination method
as a general principle. He noted that we are building medium-size desalination
plants to meet the citizens' needs for drinking water alone and not for
general usage. He also said we are seeking to restore our water rights
to spare us the aforementioned alternative.
The head of the Water Authority
believed that the most urgent problem we face is the current water shortage
in terms of quality and quantity and in light of the deteriorating situation
the entire region is witnessing.
He said the result is a dangerous
situation in the near and distant futures whether in trying to provide
potable water or water for agriculture. He asserted that the core of the
problem on the agricultural part is controlling and rationalizing water
consumption and exploring alternative irrigation methods in the future.
He indicated that the Palestinian
territories are an inseparable part of the Middle East, which faces a regional
problem of water shortage and scarcity. Consequently, scarce rainfall and
dearth of other sources of water have an adverse impact on the stored underground
water in the Palestinian territories. It is noted that rainfall rates have
been gradually dropping in general over the past years, negatively affecting
the quality and quantity of stored underground water, especially in view
of the growing demand of citizens and the agricultural sector.
On precautionary measures taken
to encounter the constant water shortages that are reminiscent of the measures
adopted in neighboring countries, Engineer al-Sharif explained that precautionary
measures to
encounter the drought crisis vary
from one area to another, according to the quantity of conserved water
and the general economic situation. He noted that the Palestinian circumstances
are different from those in other countries. He said agricultural wells
are owned by farmers and the cost of excavating water and digging wells
are paid by the farmers themselves although the PA helps as much as possible
to compensate the farmers. Al-Sharif spoke about the steps that the water
authority has taken. He said the authority began an intensive campaign
against wells dug randomly without license. He said scores of such wells
were located and were closed. He added that the water authority has also
launched a campaign to license already authorized wells and reallocate
water shares for each farmer according to the planted crops and irrigation
methods used. At the same time, the authority is improving water and sewerage
nets to reduce the loss of water, in addition to launching an awareness
campaign and giving instructions
to citizens and farmers to curtail the waste of water. He underlined the
role of citizens in preserving each drop of water for us and for the coming
generations. As for the high prices of water, he said they usually go up
when fuel and electricity prices increase. He pointed out that there are
two sources of potable water in the Gaza strip; namely, the water the municipalities
provide for citizens for prices lower than the real cost of water and the
Micrut water, which is subject to the price agreed with Israel. The Water
Authority seeks to provide domestic sources of water as much as possible.
Al-Sharif warned of the danger of
wasting water, saying it is caused by technical reasons, manifest in the
aging and decayed nets, their inability to meet the increasing demand,
and the lack of water meters. This is in addition to the illegal pirating
of water from the network. He added that three years ago the Water Authority
began implementing a project transferred by the World Bank and executed
by LEKA Company to improve water and sewerage services, install meters
at home, locate leakage, and rehabilitate water networks in various towns
of the strip.
He said loss of water would be distinctly
reduced. A similar project is expected in Hebron and Bethlehem to improve
water and sewerage services. Engineer al-Sharif called for concerted efforts
to consolidate the implementation of the Water Authority policies and carry
out the special instructions on water consumption, beside the role universities
and research centers play to contribute to sincere scientific research.
Such research should be aimed at finding alternative and safe sources to
encounter the problem of water scarcity. He hinted that the Water Authority,
in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture, issued awareness pamphlets
to citizens and farmers about how to conserve and use water.
Palestinians have black water
market (Middle East Newsline, 22/4/1999).
RAMALLAH [MENL] -- Palestinians,
faced with an acute water shortage within the next few months, are contending
with a black market in drinking water as they begin to store water for
the summer.
The market has already begun in
such West Bank cities as Hebron and Bethlehem, expected to be hit hardest
by the summer water shortage.
Palestinian sources said prices
for black market water are already exhorbitant, only weeks after the end
of the rain season. They said in some villages a container of 10 cubic
meters of water is sold for $50. The sources said the price will rise by
July.
The water shortage has already sparked
tension in some Palestinian villages. Last month, Mahmoud Abu Atwan, the
mayor of the Hebron-area of village of Dura who was appointed by the PA,
said he could not solve the
water crisis. Residents shouted
that they have not had running water in weeks.
Abu Atwan told the residents they
would have fend for themselves.
PA officials said the effects of
the drought have been exacerbated by what they said are Israel's failure
to fulfill its agreement on water allocations to the Palestinians. They
said Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip receive far more
water than Palestinians.
Israeli and Palestinian officials
have been meeting to discuss the shortage and both have appealed to the
United States and Europe for funds to ease the crisis and search for new
water resources.
PA accuses Israel of diverting
water (Middle East Newsline, 8/4/1999).
RAMALLAH [MENL] -- Israel remains
in control of 85 percent of Palestinian water resources, a Palestinian
water expert said on Thursday.
Abdul Rahman Tamimi, the expert,
said Israel intended to complete its control of Palestinian underground
water sources in the West Bank. He told Palestinian Authority radio that
Israeli authorities were diverting scarce water resources to Jewish settlements.
Tamimi warned that the result would
be less water for Palestinians in the West Bank. He warned that this would
lead to a severe water shortage this summer.
Last month, a senior PA official
said the authority opposes joint environmental and water plans between
Israeli settlements and Palestinian villages in the West Bank.
Sharon unveils desalination plan
(Israel Line, 4/2/1999).
Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon on
Wednesday urged European Union ambassadors to support a major two-phase
desalination project, which he says will protect Israelis, Palestinians
and Jordanians from water shortages in the future, HA'ARETZ reported. The
meeting came a week before German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer's visit
to Israel. Germany currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
Senior German officials are urging
Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians to come up with a joint approach to
the water issue. Israel favors expanding the water supply, while the Palestinians
also want redistribution of
existing water resources used by
Israel.
Sharon says the water crisis will
peak by 2010, when Israelis and Palestinians together are projected to
equal 10 million people. The initial phase of his proposal calls for a
50-million-cubic-meter desalination plant in Gaza for drinking water and
domestic consumption; desalination of 50 million cubic meters of brackish
water to supply Jordan in the Jordan Rift Valley; and desalination of 50-100
million cubic meters along the Mediterranean for use by Israel.
In a second phase, a large-scale
desalination plant with a capacity of 800 million cubic meters of water
would be constructed for use by all three partners.
Water for settlements: the Gazan
water crisis (Palestine Report, 5/2/1999).
by Ziad Abu Nada and Ayman Jadallah
The problem of water is intrinsic
to the political problems throughout the world, especially in the Middle
East. Countries try to meet their water needs, even at the expense of neighboring
countries. Many times this leads to political crises between countries,
as between Turkey, Syria and Iraq.
Water has been an important issue
in peace negotiations. During the Camp David negotiations between Israel,
the United States and Egypt, Israel demanded Egypt's share of the Nile
River. Israel reached an agreement with Jordan in the Wadi Araba agreement
to divide the River Jordan waters between the two countries. Negotiations
with the Palestinians over water rights have not been completed, because
the final agreement was postponed to final status negotiations.
Israel tries to cover its water
needs by taking water from other countries, either legitimately or illegitimately.
Upon invading Lebanon in 1982, Israel took control of the Litany River,
transporting large amounts of water into Israel. Israel exploits and plunders
the West Bank and Gaza waters by digging wells called "water traps" in
settlements or on the borders with the Palestinian areas.
Because of the Palestinian negotiator's
inability or unwillingness to be firm, Israel negotiated conditions favorable
only to Israel, and the Palestinians agreed to them. For example, the Cairo
Accords did not stipulate how much water settlements were allowed to take,
leaving the amount purposively ambiguous. Cairo also gave the Israeli company,
Makoret the right to take water from the Gaza Strip through preexisting
wells in the settlements. The agreement actually granted Makoret the rights
to sell water taken from Gaza to the Palestinian Authority at commercial
prices. The PA is then supposed to turn around and sell it to Gazans.
Palestinians were prohibited from digging any wells in the West Bank except
with permission from Israel.
According to official statistics
from the Palestinian Water Authority, the amount of water pumped from Israeli
settlements inside the Gaza Strip ranges from 10-12 million cubic meters
per year from the Strip's water, of course, without paying for it to the
PA. Makoret sells approximately five million cubic meters to the PA at
NIS1.3 per cubic meter.
In addition to stealing water from
the Gaza Strip, PA sources claim that Israel purposely contributes
to the pollution and salinity of Gaza water. Israeli settlements
such as Kfar Dorom pour out their sewage and industrial
wastewaters onto Gazan ground, effecting
the reservoirs.
Through international parties closely
connected to it, Israel is proposing a number of projects to acquire water
regionally. One scheme is to bring water from Turkey and store it in Israel
who will, in turn, distribute this water to
the Palestinians and Jordan.
Another project proposes bringing in water from Lebanon by altering the
river flow so that it pours into the Sea of Galilee instead of the Mediterranean.
The Gaza Strip suffers from a severe
water crisis. The Strip depends mainly on well water, its sole source of
water. The water problem in Gaza can be divided into two parts. The first,
is a shortage in the necessary quantities of water. The consumption rate
is 148 million cubic meters while the in flow to reserve aquifers is 50-70
million cubic meters, that is, a 60-80 million cubic meter deficit. The
second problem is the level of salt in the water.
Official laboratory tests confirm
that the salt in the water makes it unfit for human consumption.
Palestinian farmer Yousef Shanti,
plants vegetables in the northern region of Gaza City. Shanti needs pure
water to farm, but water shortages and salinization have ruined his crops.
Shanti spoke of this year's agricultural season. "The lack of rainwater
this year resulted in huge losses for farmers who depend on the rain. Most
winter
produce was spoiled for this reason
which in turn, led to damaging the agricultural season in addition to the
high rise in vegetable prices." On the water problem, Shanti said, "the
farmers are trying to solve the problem by irrigating the crops and by
digging special pools and storing rainwater in them to use it for irrigation.
Others try to use aquifers, which extract water from the earth. However,
this method is not very effective due to its high expense for activating
such aquifers and because of the saltiness of aquifer water in the Strip."
In terms of the role of the Palestinian
Water Authority, its head in Gaza Dr. Khayri al-Jamal said, "the Water
Authority takes many measures in order to preserve water and provide other
sources at the same time maintain the aquifers. It also carries out scientific
research in order to reach conclusions that would help solving problems
with water." He added, "the PA is the responsible party in the negotiations
and in international relations. In terms of the current agreements, they
are temporary and not final." Al-Jamal also spoke about the Palestinian
water
rights. "The Cairo Accords gave
the Palestinians the right and freedom in using and owning water in Gaza.
Also, Oslo II recognized the Palestinians' right to West Bank water and
allowed them to extract an extra 70 million
cubic meters a year." Al-Jamal stressed
that the quality of water in Gaza is below the international standards
for drinking water and that the authority would need more than US$1 billion
to purify the water and achieve the appropriate levels for drinking and
farming. al-Jamal said that the settlements, which are situated on aquifer
reserves, take 15 million cubic meters every year from Gaza water. "If
Israel withdraws from the settlements and stops stealing water, this would
participate largely to solving the water problem."
Ahmad Yacoubi, head of water resources
in Gaza stressed that a problem like this should be solved or conflict
between the two sides could arise. "There should be cooperation between
Palestinians and Israelis to solve this problem because the Israelis possess
great amounts of water which is originally Palestinian." He added that
the water reserve in the West Bank is enough for both the West Bank and
Gaza but the Israelis still control water sources there.
In addition, Israel is trying to
propose alternative projects such as purification stations in Gaza so that
Palestinian citizens will forget it was Israel who usurped their water
rights.