Tag: Water - Page 2 - International Solidarity Movement

The water in Gaza is not only water

22nd November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

I was just going to make dinner when I realized the filtered water in my tank was almost done. Perhaps it would be enough if I used the last of my bottled water. But then I would have nothing to drink with my meal. And there would be no coffee, not after the food and not for breakfast. Glances at the tap, I considered diluting the filtered water with tapwater, in order to save time and to avoid having to walk two blocks to fill the tank. It was dark outside, and the shop with water might be closed.

Tapwater cannot be used for cooking, or should not be used for cooking. I avoid doing it anyway. I wash dishes in it, but do not use it to cook my rice. It’s salt. Saltwater penetrates the underground aquifier, which it is larger than the natural supply of fresh water can fill. But the seawater is not its only contaminant. According to the United Nation, chemicals and sewage also pollute it, which is not surprising when 90,000 cubic meters of untreated sewage gush out every day. Sewage, from the toilets, back in the taps. With water treatment plants, that works. But in Gaza, the problem is that there is not enough diesel to run the generators around the clock. And for those Israel has bombed, well, it also stops the import of replacement parts. Meanwhile seawater, chemicals and sewage increase in the water supply. By 2016, UN expects the water to become completely unusable. Only three years are left until then. And at 2020, no one they say, no one will be able to live here.

I open the fridge, hoping to find something that does not require water for cooking. I close it again. Maybe the store is open, but the cistern outside it is empty. It’s not just me who needs water. And some families have to spend as much as a third of their income on it. They must use the contaminated tapwater far more than I do. When I first came here, I used tapwater to brush my teeth. That was a mistake I will not repeat. But I rinse the toothbrush in it afterwards, shaking it carefully. I think that’s okay. A Swiss woman visiting Gaza asked if I drank the filtered water. It should be drinkable, but someone told me it is only filtered from salt. I do not want to find out how things are, do not want to know. I buy the more expensive bottled water. But I wash my clothes in water from the plumbing system, like everyone else here is forced to do. I wash my hands in it, my face. I take my showers in it, washing off my salty sweat with contaminated water, polluted not only by salt, like everyone else here must.

It becomes more polluted every year. The farmers have problems with it. It’s too salty for citrus seeds to germinate, and causes harvests to decline for the products that still grow. Tanker trucks drive to those who can afford to pay. Israel says it’s concerned, has plans to pull in a pipeline and talks about desalination plants, the same plants it keeps from entering. And I think about what will happen when the disaster strikes, when no one can live here, when everyone is forced to flee: a new Nakba, caused not by the force of arms but by the siege. Where can they go? Who is prepared to receive them? And what will happen then? Will Israel then will take over the empty land, this terra nullius, pumping in water, getting the desert to bloom? I hear it as an echo.

Bedouin in the West Bank: Settler attacks, denial of water

31st July 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Huwwara, Occupied Palestine

In Huwwara, 9km south of Nablus there are two Bedouin families who have been living in tents with their animals since the start of June. They are usually camped near Hebron or in the Naqab desert, but for the summer they are based in Huwwara so the animals have room to move. They have had no problems thus far with the Israeli army from the neighbouring Huwwara military base or settlers whom drive up and down the road near their tents.

Bedouin camp near Hawara — Bedouin camp near Huwwara (Photo by ISM)

The other Bedouin living close by in Huwwara however were less fortunate – at the beginning of July they were attacked by settlers from the nearby illegal settlements of Itamar and Yitzhar. On Saturday the 6th of July about 50 settlers invaded the Bedouin camps attacking the residents and trying to steal the Bedouin’s sheep. The settlers damaged a tractor and private car and began to destroy plants and trees in the area until the District Coordination Office (liasion between the Israeli and Palestinian authorities) intervened and directed them to leave the area.

These two families, however are denied access to water by Israel. They do not have water to drink, wash or provide to their animals. Thus they are forced to travel over 1km with the tank in tow to go and buy water. According to a UN Humanitarian Factsheet on Area C of the West Bank, July 2011 “communities depending on tankered water pay up to 400% more for every liter than those connected to the water network”. Israel’s national water company, Mekorot holds a monoply over the water supplies providing almost half the water consumed by Palestinian communities effected, making a profit off the water shortages that are a result of the Israeli occupation.

Water tank required to bring water to the Bedouin camps (Photo by ISM)

Over 60 percent of the West Bank is considered Area C, therefore under full Israeli civil and security control, including planning and zoning and preventing any possible construction for water access. An estimated 150,000 Palestinians live in Area C, including 27,500 Bedouin and other herders. The discrepancy in water consumption between Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the West Bank is vast. Israelis, including settlers, have access to 300 liters of water per day, according to EWASH, while the West Bank average is around 70 liters, below the World Health Organization’s recommended minimum of 100 liters per day for basic sanitation, hygiene and drinking.

UPDATED: Illegal settler colonisers attack workers in Asira

17th June 2013 | International Women’s Peace Service | Asira al Qibliya , Occupied Palestine

UPDATE 19th June: Settlers from the illegal settlement of Yizhar again attacked the water reservoir project in Asira. At 4pm on the 19th of June fifty settlers, accompanied by over thirty Israeli soldiers trespassed onto village land and attacked locals working on the site. The workers left the project immediately, but the settlers and army remained in the area until 8pm. The army threatened to arrest concerned locals and international activists, stating that the area was now a closed military zone. Tear gas was shot at villagers who stood observing the scene. A number of villagers have noted an increased military presence around the village, with training exercises taking place nearby the past three mornings.

UPDATE 18th June: The illegal settler continue their attacks on the village of Asira. Yesterday (18 June) they burnt the power/electricity switch box of the water reservoir project. Apart from the immediate labour and financial costs, such criminalities aim to further block Palestinian access to their water.

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In the evening of Sunday 16 June, a gang of illegal settler colonisers, accompanied by some 30 Israeli soldiers, attacked the small group of Palestinian men who were working on a water project in the village of Asira, south of Nablus. The settlers threw stones while the army threw stun grenades and fired tear gas at the workers and the villagers who had gathered at the site to protect them. The attackers then told the workers that they “must leave the area”.

Such criminal activities against the workers are committed almost daily in Asira. Even despite the fact that the project they are working on – building a water reservoir and a pipe to connect the surrounding villages of Madama, Burin, and Asira, to a water source – has a building permit, they are not allowed to do their work uninterrupted by violence from the illegal settler colonisers and the Israeli army, who have also destroyed some 100 pipes originally bought for the project.

Asira [al Qibliya] is an ancient village with the current population of 3,500. West of the village Roman ruins are still visible; before the Romans the territory was inhabited by the Phoenicians and the Canaanites.

Tradition has it that at the beginning of spring, the villagers of Asira would gather for celebrations on a hill close to the village, which according to Islam is a holy site. Among other festivities, they would play with brightly coloured eggs: one who cracks an egg against another’s, wins.

In mid-1980s, the illegal settler colony of Yitzhar was established on that very hilltop. That was the end of the Palestinian spring celebrations, and the beginning of Asira’s land and, crucially, water theft. Before the colony, the area was the locals’ breadbasket, thanks largely to its generous water resources. The nearby natural spring used to be Asira’s main source of water; the illegal settler colony, backed up by the Israeli government and the army, has completely blocked Palestinian access to the spring. Since then, villagers are forced to rely on water tanks; one such tank costs NIS 130 (US $36) in a place where unemployment is high; it is enough for a family for only a week. In this context, water theft is yet another method intended to drive the indigenous population off their land.

Residents of the illegal Israeli settler colony of Yitzhar are considered to be among the most violent in occupied Palestine; they physically attack Palestinian villagers (oftentimes children), set their land and property on fire, destroy houses, and cut or burn olive trees together with other vital sources of livelihood. “[The illegal settler colony of Yitzhar] is like a cancer in the heart of this area,” a local resident told IWPS. “… And in our hearts.”

Qabalan and Talfit show their lives under occupation

9th May 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Talfit and Qalaban, Occupied Palestine

Israeli occupation has created different problems for Talfit and Qabalan. Talfit is proud of its history and wants to protect it from Israeli army night incursion that seeks to appropriate it, as Qalaban struggles to provide water to its population.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Old olive presser in Talfit

Talfit is a village situated south of Nablus, in a valley rich with olive fields. A village proud of its history, especially for its role in the resistance during the 1st and 2nd Intifadas. This resistance resulted in the village being collectively punished with arrests and house demolitions, including the house of a present member of the village council who witnessed those importance struggles of resistance.

In the last months, weekly night incursions by Israeli occupation forces took place in Talfit, provoking concerns from the inhabitants. During these incursions the soldiers have been very interested in the old buildings of Talfit. Antiques such as jars and ploughs have been taken from the village by the army. Larger structures such as old buildings containing milestones and olive presses are photographed by the soldiers during these incursions where they have also been known to write Hebrew and draw the Star of David on the walls and doors of the buildings.

These incursions are of concern for the villagers who worry that their purpose is to try and appropriate their history, which could lead to future problems. Israel has in the past used the appropriation of Palestinian history and culture as a pretext to change the continuity of the history of the Palestine people and the land. A similar strategy was used in Susyia where villagers were expelled and their homes demolished due to the discovery by Zionist archaeologists of an old synagogue, not recognising the villager’s history predating the synagogue and after.

Qabalan, a village near to Talfit, is not unique in the West Bank for the problems of water shortages it faces as a result of the Israeli occupation though Qabalan seems to suffer more than most. According to the World Health Organisation, one person needs an average of 100 litres a day, but according to Qabalan’s village council, their residents receive less than half this amount with an average of 44 litres per person a day. The average consumption of water per person per day by Israel and their settlements is 242 litres. (See infographic by Visualising Palestine and Ewash here.)

The water shortage in Qabalan is a result of this high demand by Israel and its nearby settlements of Rechalim, Shilo and Eli, situated on the mountain overlooking Qabalan. Since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Israel controls the water delivering Palestinian water to Palestinians at a higher price than to Israeli settlers and citizens. This is also true of electricity and gas. A large part of Qalaban land is on area C, which Israel is supposed to administer for the good of all people living there, however it has issued demolition orders for 9 houses putting families at risk of being homeless.

Three months ago, settlers from Rechalim attacked the population of Qabalan, burning land, cutting down around 200 olive trees and destroying cars. Furthermore, during the period of the olive harvest, which is of large importance to the people of Qabalan, settlers attacked the people harvesting their olives on land near the settlements. Arrests of Qabalan residents also occur – In May 2013 an 18 year old from Qabalan was arrested and put under administrative detention for several days – held without charges or trial.

The problems created by the occupation that affects the villages and all of Palestine are a direct obstacle to peace. A council member from Talfit summed up the situation saying that “Israel is like a person trying to carry two melons, land and peace. They can either have the land, or the peace, not both.”

Thirsting for Justice Campaign Teach-in for Palestinian water rights World Water Day – 22 March 2013

19 February| Thirsting for Justice

On World Water Day show your support for the Palestinian struggle for water justice, organize a teach-in to learn the facts about the context and take action in support of this basic human right.

The Thirsting for Justice Campaign calls on supporters worldwide to observe World Water Day 2013 (22 March) by organizing community teach-ins[1] to gain an accurate and factual portrayal of the challenges Palestinians under Israeli occupation face in their daily lives when accessing clean water and to promote discussion on actions in support of Palestinian water rights.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinians and internationals in the West Bank will be taking part in a “walk for water justice” in the Jordan Valley to mark World Water Day, an initiative of the Thirsting for Justice Campaign and the Jenin Freedom Theater.

To join the teach-in action:

1. Register intent by writing to us on info@thirstingforjustice.org. You will receive a resource pack, which contains all the information you need to organize this action.

2. Discuss with us your ideas. We will endeavor to answer your queries and support you in the organization of the teach-in. Watch our video: http://youtu.be/wva8lYEVGCk

3. Send us the details for your teach-in so we can advertise it on our website and social media. You can organize the teach-in at any time during the month of March.

4. Send us your report-back with details of what was agreed among participants during the meeting so others can be inspired by your work. See the action sheet we prepared in the resource pack with suggestions on what you could do to reach decision-makers and get them to act.

Learn more about the campaign for Palestinian water rights on our website www.thirstingforjustice.org and look for us on Facebook and Twitter.

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[1] Teach-ins are educational forums where people come together to focus on a single topic and build a common understanding about an issue. Teach-ins are meant to be practical, participatory and oriented towards action. Their main goal is to educate people and work towards change.