Posted on October 29, 2009 - by Frank
Israel Cutting Palestinian Water
Al Jazeera has a report about the state of water distribution between Israel and the Palestinian Territories:
Israel is denying Palestinians adequate access to clean, safe water while allowing almost unlimited supplies to Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, human rights group Amnesty International has said.
“Swimming pools, well-watered lawns and large irrigated farms in Israeli settlements… stand in stark contrast next to Palestinian villages whose inhabitants struggle even to meet their domestic water needs,” the group said in a report released on Tuesday.
Amnesty said between 180,000 and 200,000 Palestinians in West Bank rural communities have no access to running water, while taps in other areas often run dry.
“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank”, Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty researcher, said.
Israel’s daily water consumption per capita is four times higher than the 70 litre per person consumed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, according to the report entitled: Troubled waters – Palestinians denied fair access to water
Shortages
Israel, which itself faces unprecedented water shortages, controls much of the West Bank’s supplies, pumping from the so-called Mountain Aquifer that bridges Israel and the territory.
The Amnesty report said Israel uses more than 80 per cent of water drawn from the aquifer and while Israel has other water sources, the aquifer is the West Bank’s only supply of water.
Read the rest of the article here and the Amnesty report here.
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