Israel Withholds Water From Palestinians

JERUSALEM: Amnesty International accuses Israel of disproportionate amounts of pumping drinking water from an aquifer that controls the West Bank, depriving local Palestinians than their fair share.

The London-based human rights group also said in a report to be published on Tuesday that Israel has blocked infrastructure projects to improve existing water supplies to the Palestinians – both in the West Bank and those living in the Gaza Strip.

“This shortage has affected all aspects of Palestinian life,” Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel, Donatella Rovera, told the AP in an interview Monday before publication of the report. “The higher the amount of water to be given to them.”

Israeli officials deny the charges. Water is a major point of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and is considered a matter to be resolved before the two sides can make peace.

The issue is further complicated by the division in the Palestinian territories, with the moderate Fatah movement governing the West Bank while Hamas rules the Gaza coastline.

The Israelis used more than four times the amount of water per person on average than the Palestinians, whose consumption is far below the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization, the report said.

The report focuses particularly on the so-called Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank. It is said that Israel uses over 80 percent of water extracted from the aquifer and, as the Jewish state has other sources of water, the aquifer is the sole supply West Bank water.

As a result, the 450,000 Israelis living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinian residents, Amnesty said. Israel captured both areas in Jordan in the 1967 war. The Palestinians claim as part of a future state.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev called Amnesty applications “completely ridiculous” and said Israel has the legal right to the aquifer, since it was the first to discover, develop and pump it.

Regev said Israel pumps less water from the mountain aquifer today than in 1967, and consumption of freshwater Palestinians has actually tripled in that time.

He blamed the Palestinians for failing to invest in development in the West Bank and said that they have failed even to drill wells that have already been approved.

Amnesty charged that Israel routinely denies Palestinians permits to start cleaning up the water and desperately needed infrastructure projects in the West Bank.

Shaul Arlosoroff, a leading Israeli authority on the acquisition and use of water, said Israeli restrictions in the West Bank are intended to protect an aquifer already encumbered by excessive pumping.

Tags: Israel, Palestinian, Water, Withholds