Israel rations Palestinians to trickle of water

27 October 2009

Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.

These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.

“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.

In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.

Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.

The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River.

While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much.

In some rural communities Palestinians survive on barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended for domestic use in emergency situations.

Some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater.

In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools.

Numbering about 450,000, the settlers use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million.

In the Gaza Strip, 90 to 95 per cent of the water from its only water resource, the Coastal Aquifer, is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Yet, Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank to Gaza.

Stringent restrictions imposed in recent years by Israel on the entry into Gaza of material and equipment necessary for the development and repair of infrastructure have caused further deterioration of the water and sanitation situation in Gaza, which has reached crisis point.

To cope with water shortages and lack of network supplies many Palestinians have to purchase water, of often dubious quality, from mobile water tankers at a much higher price.

Others resort to water-saving measures which are detrimental to their and their families’ health and which hinder socio-economic development.

“Over more than 40 years of occupation, restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians’ access to water have prevented the development of water infrastructure and facilities in the OPT, consequently denying hundreds of thousand of Palestinians the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing, or health, and to economic development,” said Donatella Rovera.

Israel has appropriated large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and barred Palestinians from accessing them.

It has also imposed a complex system of permits which the Palestinians must obtain from the Israeli army and other authorities in order to carry out water-related projects in the OPT. Applications for such permits are often rejected or subject to long delays.

Restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of people and goods in the OPT further compound the difficulties Palestinians face when trying to carry out water and sanitation projects, or even just to distribute small quantities of water.

Water tankers are forced to take long detours to avoid Israeli military checkpoints and roads which are out of bounds to Palestinians, resulting in steep increases in the price of water.

In rural areas, Palestinian villagers are continuously struggling to find enough water for their basic needs, as the Israeli army often destroys their rainwater harvesting cisterns and confiscates their water tankers.

In comparison, irrigation sprinklers water the fields in the midday sun in nearby Israeli settlements, where much water is wasted as it evaporates before even reaching the ground.

In some Palestinian villages, because their access to water has been so severely restricted, farmers are unable to cultivate the land, or even to grow small amounts of food for their personal consumption or for animal fodder, and have thus been forced to reduce the size of their herds.

“Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford,” said Donatella Rovera.

“Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians’ access to water, and take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources.”

The day the bulldozers came…

West Bank farmer Mahmoud al-‘Alam won’t forget the day Israeli army bulldozers cut off his water supply… and destroyed his livelihood.

The village of Beit Ula, where Mahmoud lives, is not connected to the Palestinian water network. Instead the community, located north-west of Hebron, relies on rainwater, which it collects and stores in pots dug in the ground, known as cisterns.

The nine new cisterns built in 2006 as part of a European Union-funded project to improve food security became the pride of the village. The cisterns were vital to the survival of the nine families that used them… until the bulldozers arrived.

“[The Israeli army] destroyed everything; they went up and down several times
with the bulldozer and uprooted everything,” recalls Mahmoud al-‘Alam.

In a few hours, years of hard work had been undone. The cisterns had been built with the help of two local nongovernmental organizations, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees and the Palestinian Hydrology Group.

The cisterns provided water for 3,200 newly planted trees including olive, almond, lemon and fig trees. The farmers had also contributed a significant portion of the overall cost of the project.

“We invested a lot of money and worked very hard,” said Mahmoud al-‘Alam. “This is good land and it was a very good project. We put a lot of thought into how to shape the terraces and build the cisterns in the best way, to make the best use of the land, and we planted trees which need little water… the saplings were growing well…”

The story of Beit Ula is one of many cases where Israeli forces have targeted Palestinian communities in the region.

On 4 June 2009, the Israeli army destroyed the homes and livestock pens of 18
Palestinian families in Ras al-Ahmar, a hamlet in the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank.

More than 130 people were affected, many of them children. Crucially, the soldiers
confiscated the water tank, tractor and trailer used by the villagers to bring in water. They were left without shelter or a water supply at the hottest time of the year.

On 28 July 2007, Israeli soldiers at a military checkpoint confiscated the tractor and water tanker of Ahmad Abdallah Bani Odeh, a villager from the hamlet of Humsa.

An Israeli army official told Amnesty International that the vital items were being confiscated in an attempt to force the villagers from the area, which the army had declared a “closed military area”.

In another village, a rainwater harvesting cistern belonging to Palestinian villagers was destroyed by the Israeli army under the pretext that it was built without a permit. Permits for water projects have to be obtained from the Israeli authorities but are rarely granted to Palestinians.

In recent years the homes of Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley have been repeatedly destroyed and their water tankers confiscated.

Each time, the homes – tents and simple shacks made of metal and plastic sheets – are rebuilt. Because of the villagers’ determination to remain on their land despite extremely harsh living conditions, the Israeli army has increasingly restricted their access to water as a way of forcing them to abandon the area.

In’am Bisharat, a mother of seven from the village of Hadidiya, told Amnesty International: “We live in the harshest conditions, without water, electricity or any services.

“The lack of water is the biggest problem. The men spend most of the day…[going] to get water and they can’t always bring it. But we have no choice. We need a little bit of water to survive and to keep the sheep alive. Without water there is no life.

“The [Israeli] army has cut us off from everywhere…We don’t choose to live like this; we would also like to have beautiful homes and gardens and farms, but these privileges are only for the Israeli settlers… we are not even allowed basic services.”

The lack of water has already forced many Palestinians to leave the Jordan Valley and the survival of the communities is increasingly threatened. In Beit Ula, Mahmoud al-‘Alam’s livelihood is similarly at risk.

“It is very painful for me every time to come here and see the destruction; everything we worked for is gone. Why would anyone want to do this? What good can come from [it]?” he asks.

Israeli police arrest Greek diplomat in Sheikh Jarrah

26 October 2006

On Monday 26 October 2009 at 4pm, a group of about 40 – 50 international and Israeli citizens, taking part in a tour organised by the Alternative Information Centre visited the Palestinian neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. They gathered outside of the house of the Gawi family which was recently forcefully evicted from their house, only for it to be taken over by settlers.

Israeli police units summoned by the settlers occupying the Gawi family house, arrived at the scene and responded to what they claimed was an illegal demonstration by clearly disproportionate violence. In an attempt to disperse the crowd, the police arrested four participants of the tour – an Israeli rabbi, Yehiel Grenimann from Rabbis for Human Rights, a Greek diplomat, Tina Strikou and two international activists.

At first, only one police unit arrived to the area and started pushing the crowd away from the Gawi family house, to the other side of the street where the family has been living since they were forcefully evicted on 2 August 2009. Those who refused to move or moved slowly were violently pushed by the police. Two more police units arrived later and, using a loud-speaker, made an announcement in Hebrew, apparently an order to leave the area or to move to the sidewalk opposite to the Gawi family house within 5 minutes.

The police then started to collect passport information from the remaining visitors. When Tina Strikou, a Greek diplomat, protested that the police didn’t have the right to do this and demanded they return her passport, she was forcefully taken into custody.

A couple of minutes later, an Israeli rabbi Yehiel Grenimann from Rabbits for Human Rights, who was standing in the middle of the street was pushed back towards the sidewalk by a police officer. When he gently resisted, the police forcefully arrested him. He lost his glasses and a shoe while the police dragged him into their car. An international activist who was filming the arrest of the rabbi from close range became the third person to be arrested and taken away from the scene.

In the last couple of days, residents of Sheikh Jarrah have seen a rise in harassment form the police and Israeli authorities, as well as violence and provocative actions from the side of the settlers occupying houses which belong to the Gawi and Hannoun family. Last Tuesday 20 October, a group of settlers attacked several members of the Gawi family, mainly women and children. The attack resulted in seven Palestinians injured and six detained. On Sunday 18 October 2009, the police and municipality workers came to the tent where the Gawi family lives and verbally ordered them to remove the tent before Sunday 25 October 2009.

Furthermore, on Tuesday, 27 October, the second hearing of the Sabagh family from Sheikh Jarrah will take place. Similar to the families Al-Kurd, Gawi, and Hannoun, the Sabagh family is also under the threat of eviction.

Background

The Gawi and Hannoun families, consisting of 53 members including 20 children, have been left homeless after they were forcibly evicted from their houses on 2 August 2009. The Israeli forces surrounded the homes of the two families at 5.30am and, breaking in through the windows, forcefully dragged all residents into the street. The police also demolished the neighbourhood’s protest tent, set up by Um Kamel, following the forced eviction of her family in November 2008.

At present, all three houses are occupied by settlers and the whole area is patrolled by armed private settler security 24 hours a day. Both Hannoun and Gawi families, who have been left without suitable alternative accommodation since August, continue to protest against the unlawful eviction from the sidewalk across the street from their homes, facing regular attacks from the settlers and harassment from the police.

The Karm Al-Ja’ouni neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah is home to 28 Palestinian families, all refugees from 1948, who received their houses from the UNRWA and Jordanian government in 1956. All face losing their homes in the manner of the Hannoun, Gawi and al-Kurd families.

The aim of the settlers is to turn the whole area into a new Jewish settlement and to create a Jewish continuum that will effectively cut off the Old City form the northern Palestinian neighborhoods. Implanting new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is illegal under many international laws, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Tensions escalate in Sheikh Jarrah as settlers attempt to provoke violence

23 October 2009

On Friday 23 October 2009, tensions ran high when 30 settlers conducted a provocative prayer on the street outside the confiscated Gawi family house in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem. Several heavily armed Israeli police units arrived quickly thereafter but they did not stop the prayer until after one hour. In response to the settler action, the Gawi family and Palestinian neighbours put up a display of resistance by making noise with pans and horns which drowned out the prayer noise. Many internationals arrived on the scene to document the event and discourage any physical attack by the settlers or police. After the visiting settlers had left the neighbourhood, the police withdrew, leaving one unit on the street outside the house all night long.

The incident started at 4pm when a large number of settlers arrived at the house. This immediately sparked worries about a potential violent attack. The tension escalated at 5pm when 30 settlers exited the house and gathered on the sidewalk outside, in close proximity to the small tent just across the road, where the Gawi family have been living since they were forcefully evicted from their now occupied house on 2 August 2009. Facing the staircase running along the front of the house, the settlers collectively conducted a passionate and loud prayer. After about 30 minutes, they changed the prayer mode to singing and dancing in a ring. The one hour long prayer seemingly blessed and celebrated the Jewish family’s confiscation of the house, showing no sign of concern for the hardship inflicted upon the Gawi family.

A couple of days earlier, on Tuesday 20 October 2009 at around 8pm, the Gawi family were violently attacked by a group of eight settlers. In that attack, lasting 30 minutes, seven members of the Gawi family had to be treated in hospital for relatively minor injuries, for example a knife-cut hand, and their tent was vandalised. Six police units arrived on the scene but did not stop the attack, instead opting to first observe the attack and later arrest five local residents including members of the Ghawi family; three of them were quickly released but two remain in custody for allegedly attacking settlers.

The day after that attack, about 20 settlers arrived for a meeting in the occupied house, causing tension and anxiety about another potential attack. Relatives and neighbours of the Gawi family gathered around the tent, and organised a night-watch presence for the next couple of days, putting the family under an even bigger pressure as they were getting barely any sleep. Settlers are armed with guns and knives, while Palestinians are not even allowed to be in possession of kitchen knives.

On Sunday 18 October 2009, the police and municipality workers came to the tent and verbally gave an eviction notice to the Gawi family, ordering them to remove the tent before Sunday 25 October 2009. In response to this planned eviction, international activists gathered in the area, in order to discourage or document potential violence, as well as to discourage the eviction. As of Sunday night, the tent is still standing, however, according to the family and local residents, the threat is not over.

Background

Clashes erupt at Aqsa compound

Al Jazeera

25 October 2009

Dozens of people have been wounded in clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians in and around the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, a flashpoint site holy to Muslims and Jews.

The Red Crescent emergency service said at least 18 Palestinians were wounded in the violence on Sunday.

At least three officers were also hurt in the fighting, Israeli police said.

The site is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), comprising al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

An Israeli police spokesman said at least 16 people were arrested, but that calm had largely returned to the area several hours after the clashes broke out.

Israeli police action

Jivara al-Budairi, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Jerusalem, said the violence in the Old City erupted after the Israeli police fired tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinian students and youths in the area.

The youths retaliated by throwing stones at the police.

Israeli police had deployed extra troops to the site early on Sunday after Palestinians called for demonstrations in response to rumours that rightwing Jewish activists were planning to gather at the compound.

The rumours circulated after a fringe Israeli group, the Organisation for the Defence of Human Rights on the Temple Mount, called on Jews to gather at the mosque compound as well as the adjacent Western Wall.

A spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, condemned “the storming of Haram al-Sharif by Israeli forces” and called on Israel to “halt all provocative acts”.

“Jerusalem is a red line that cannot be crossed,” Nabil Abu Rudeina told the AFP news agency, calling on the international community to intervene to “put pressure on the Israeli government”.

Palestinian officials said the Israeli police had closed off the compound to visitors, leaving hundreds of worshipers inside.

Shmuel Ben-Ruby, the Jerusalem police spokesman, said security forces used stun grenades to disperse the demonstrators.

He accused the protesters of pouring oil on the ground to make the police forces slip, and of hurling a firebomb.

Ben-Ruby said police did not enter the mosque itself.

‘Angry Palestinians’

But Kamal Khatib, a spokesman for the Israeli Arab Islamic Movement, which has been at the forefront of recent al-Aqsa demonstrations, blamed Israeli police for the clashes.

“The police always excuse their attacks by saying that the worshippers threw stones,” he told AFP.
“It is clear they just want to justify their crimes.”

Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in East Jerusalem, said: “Palestinians living in the occupied part of the city put up with a lot of indignity and harassment on a daily basis – demolitions, evictions, checkpoints.

“But when it comes to anything that threatens the integrity of al-Aqsa mosque, that is where people’s patience snaps and that is why we have seen such an angry response all over East Jerusalem [from people] who see this as a very heavy display of police might.”

Tensions had exploded into violence earlier on September 27, when Palestinians hurled rocks at a group of visitors who they suspected of being rightwing Jewish extremists.

Israel captured the compound from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War and it has since served as a symbol of the two sides’ competing claims to Jerusalem.

Day-to-day administration of the site remains in Muslim hands.

In September 2000, the second Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, erupted after Ariel Sharon, a rightwing politician who went on to become Israel’s prime minister, visited the site.

UK: Carmel Agrexco blockaders in court

23 October 2009

On October 26 – 29, 2009 two women will be put on trial in the United Kingdom for taking part in a blockade of Carmel Agrexco’s produce warehouse during the Bloody Valentine Week of Action. They are accused of obstructing police officers and assaulting a police officer during the women only action. This is only the second time that people have been brought to court for actions against Carmel Agrexco in over 5 years of sustained direct action at the London depot.

The action was taken in solidarity with the Palestinian people on whose land the flowers, fruits and vegetables are grown and harvested. The action came in the aftermath of the 3-week Israeli invasion of Gaza in which more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed. Carmel-Agrexco is the Israeli national exporter of fruit and vegetables and imports large quantities of goods from illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. As feminists and as Palestinian solidarity activists, the women blockading Agrexco aimed to challenge the oppression of Palestinians by targeting a tool of the occupation.

According to a statement the activists released prior to their trial:
Carmel Agrexco directly profits from the Israeli occupation, which colonises Palestine. These goods are grown in the rich soils of the Jordan Valley where the indigenous people are prevented from building houses, schools, accessing water. Palestinians, including many children, work and are exploited in Agrexco-owned settlement packing houses. The sale and distribution of goods produced in settlements must be resisted in the countries which receive them as exports. The UK is the most important export market for Agrexco and so we think that challenging and disrupting their business here is important.

During previous direct actions the police have been reluctant to arrest any protestors – even when they have invaded the warehouses, destroyed goods and locked on to the gates for over 10 hours. Evidence strongly suggests that this is a result of collusion between Agrexco and the local police. In the first (and until now, only) trial of direct action activists at the depot in 2006, the case collapsed after evidence of Carmel-Agrexco’s dealings with illegal settlements was disclosed. The charges were dropped and subsequent actions no longer lead to court cases.

This action, undeniably feminist in spirit, has resulted in the first people being brought to trial for activities against Agrexco since 2006. The systematic and entrenched sexism we know exists within the police force was clearly reflected in the misogynistic comments and treatment these women received during the action. In this gendered context, we ask ourselves why the police and CPS have decided to try this case, rather than the 30+ others preceding it.

This case is crucial in the continuing campaign against Carmel Agrexco. Please spread the word about the trial, post the defendants’ statement widely and take action against Carmel Agrexco.

For more information about Carmel Agrexco see:
http://www.bigcampaign.org