Tag: Water - Page 4 - International Solidarity Movement

Struggling for water in Gaza

22 October 2011 | Mondoweiss, Leila Al-Najar and Ishraq Othman

The Beach camp “Al-shate” is located to the west of Gaza City. Small houses are crowded together with an unbearable smell springing from the wastewater running through the alleys. As volunteers in Youth for the Right of Water and Sanitation project (YRWS) we occasionally visit homes there randomly for our case study on water problems. Residents suffer enormously from serious water problems caused by the Israeli occupation which for years has undertaken exploiting and withdrawing all our pure water resources; groundwater, the Jordan River, the Gaza valley and Lake Tiberius. Thus, all aquifers start to run out and the problem of salty water is increasingly appearing in most houses in Gaza.

We visited the home of Haider Saed Abu-Jazya, a 51 year old carpenter and a father of 14 children whose family has a long miserable history with water. “We have been suffering from water shortage and unfair distribution for 10 years. It’s only available for two days a week beginning at midnight only to run out again in the morning. Along with the problem of polluted insufficient supply another problem has emerged, salty water” said Haider who looks older than his age.

The tone of Haider’s voice tells us he is extremely worried about his family’s life. He is likely to pass on the misery he inherited from his refugee parents to his children. “Can you drink a cup of tea melted with three spoons of salt? Absolutely you cannot” he stresses. He describes how salty and polluted water negatively affects his family. For this, he is obliged to buy a 500-liter gallon supply of water which costs 15 NIS 4 US dollars a day. Sometimes he borrows from a neighbor or friend to pay for it, ‏ other times his friends have no money to offer.

Not only is pure water used for drinking but also for ordinary daily use. Haider has a big family, yet he earns a low income to cover the simplest and most important needs of life like water ‏which must be affordable to all people as a matter of human rights.

“A house without water as quiet as a desert”, he concludes.

Once, he ran out of water for two weeks in a row, so his wife couldn’t do the house chores like cooking, washing and laundering. Thus, they had to throw their dirty clothes away, which were not laundered for days and could not be used again.

How can a human being survive in such conditions?! How can not one be infected by diseases of salty water?

“The low quality of water causes allergies and red pimples arising on my children’s skin” his wife whispers.

WHAT TO DO?!

“All dwellers of the neighborhood gathered and headed to the municipality to complain about the water problems we all face, there were promises made but never fulfilled” he said.

Haider speaks on behalf of the Palestinian nation, hoping this voice will be heard all over the planet.

To those who read this article, imagine that you cannot get a drop of pure water while your baby is strongly crying because his milk is his only food.

Palestine suffers from severe lack of water and Gaza’s water in particular is going to run out by 2020. As long as the world commits absolute silence, Gaza will turn into a wasteland. Gaza needs your help, don’t hesitate to help our people.

CPT: Israeli Army Destroys 9 Water Tanks in Palestinian Village

6 July 2011 | Christian Peacemaker Team, Hebron

Late Tuesday morning, around 11:30, a convoy of Israeli Army, civil administration, and border police arrived in the Palestinian village of Amniyr accompanying a flat bed truck with a front end loader and a backhoe. Israeli settlers having a picnic at the settlement outpost next to the Susiya archaeological site looked on as the army destroyed nine large tanks of water and a tent.

Amniyr is a small village of 11 families in the South Hebron Hills, just northeast of the Palestinian village of Susiya and the Israeli settlement of the same name. The village of shepherds and farmers, like most villages in the area, is totally dependent in the summer on tanks of water.

Nor does that water come cheap. Costs of transportation, due to the poor infrastructure in the area – Palestinians are normally not permitted to build roads in Area C of the West Bank and have restricted access to Israeli roads – mean the cost of water is much higher than normal. A cubic meter of water in the nearby town of Yatta costs 6 shekels. In Amniyr it cost 35. The tanks themselves cost 1000 shekels each, and each tank held 2 cubic meters of water, yielding a total of over 10,000 shekels in damage, which for many in the area is equivalent to a half year’s work.

This is the fifth demolition in Amniyr in the last year, according to village residents and Nasser Nawaja, a B’Tselem worker. One month ago the army destroyed 11 houses and two cisterns full of water. The cisterns had also been destroyed 5 months ago and rebuilt with the help of Israeli activists from Ta’ayush. The ruins of houses from previous demolitions are still present; broken stones and twisted metal. Located just south of the archaeological site of old Susiya, the Israeli government claims it is state land.

Ten of the families now sleep in Yatta and come during the day to tend to their olive and almond trees as they have no place to sleep and no water. One couple though has refused to move. Mohammed Hussain Jabour and his wife Zaffra refuse to leave. The morning after the demolition they were making tea on an open fire next to their tent. “I’ve been here with my father and our sheep since I was a little boy,” he said, with visible indignation. “Now I’m an old man. And now Israel tells me I can’t be here. I’m not leaving.”

“What are we supposed to do?” his wife Zaffra asked. “What will we drink? We can’t live without water.”

The demolition comes on the heels of the demolition of 6 tent homes and a toilet in the village of Bir al Eid, just two kilometers to the south, two weeks ago. Both incidents are the latest in a long history of demolitions of Palestinian homes and buildings in the area by the Israeli army, affecting both these villages and the villages of Susiya and nearby Imneizel.

CPT: Livelihood of Hebron shepherd threatened

20 October 2010 | Christian Peacemakers Team

Noah El-Rajabi is a shepherd, with two hundred sheep and goats. He lives in Bani Na’im, 17 kilometres from Hebron. He is married, and has seven children.

Ten weeks ago the Israeli military demolished his house. His wife and younger children now live in two rented rooms in Hebron. Noah and his oldest son lived in a tent supplied by the Red Cross, so that Noah could continue to work with his flock.

On Monday 11th October, at 8.00 a.m. the Israeli military arrived without warning and destroyed his water cistern, his tent, and a small wooden structure Noah used for cooking and storage.

His oldest son, aged 14, who was with Noah, protested at the soldiers’ action, and was arrested. His son is accused of assaulting two soldiers. Noah reports that soldiers kicked and beat some of the animals and that one pregnant ewe aborted.

ISM activits, along with members from the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) met Noah in Hebron on Tuesday morning 12th October. He did not know where his son was being held, and where he could get water for his animals.

CPTers accompanied Noah to three Israeli police stations. The only information Israeli police gave was that his son was being held in Ofer military prison. They refused to accept a complaint against the Israeli soldiers for their behavior.

ISM and CPTers also visited Noah’s rented accommodation in Hebron. They met his wife and some of his younger children. ‘Please bring my son home’, his wife pleaded.

The animals are being looked after by Noah’s brother, and have been moved to another hillside, where there is water. Agencies in Hebron are trying to reconnect Noah’s water supply, but the cistern will have to be restored, and will run the risk of further demolition orders in the future.

It took Noah a week to track down his son, and he still has not been able to see him.

This incident illustrates the Israeli government’s continued intimidation and harassment techniques aimed at forcing Palestinians off of their ancestral lands in order to expand settlements, and further control the main West Bank mountain aquifer.

A recent study by the World Bank found that Israel is taking four times as much water as the Palestinians. Israelis use 240 cubic meters of water a person each year, against 75 cubic meters for West Bank Palestinians and 125 for Gazans. Palestinians have not been able to develop any new production wells in the West Bank since the 1967 war. Noah’s case is a clear example of the inequities surrounding water distribution, and a reflection of the wider apartheid system.

Demonstration against water theft in Baqa’a Valley, Hebron

23 August 2010 | ISM Media

Today (23 August 2010) a demonstration was held in the Baqa’a Valley, east of Hebron, against the theft of water from the Palestinian population in the area. About 15 water trucks were parked along Road 60, the road that runs through the valley. The intention was to protest against the fact that the farmers don’t get access to the water reservoirs in Kyriat Arba, the illegal settlement outside Hebron city. The demonstration was also attended by local farmers, standing on the side of the road with the truck drivers. Israeli police and army came to the spot, but did not interfere during the hour-long demonstration.

The water situation in Baqa’a Valley is critical, as the population depends on their farmland to support themselves, and they get a very limited amount of water from the municipality. The settlements in the Hebron district are supported by the Israeli government with the majority of the water resources, originally sourced from Bethlehem, going to settlements. The water is cut off from the Palestinian areas, which receive only a tiny percentage from the Hebron municipality, while most of it is confiscated by the Israeli state and distributed to illegal settlements like Kyriat Arba and Harsina. According to B’Tselem figures from 2008, residents in the Hebron district use on average 56 litres per capita daily – the third lowest amount in the West Bank. In general, Israelis have access to three and a half times more water than Palestinians living in the West Bank.

Baqa’a Valley is the most fertile land in the Hebron district, and the residents are living in constant fear of losing their homes and land, as the area is included in the Israeli state’s plan of dividing the West Bank and expanding and connecting the surrounding settlements. About 35 houses in Baqa’a Valley, in the so-called Area C are now facing eviction orders. In addition the residents frequently face vandalism of crops and water pipes from settlers intent on sabotaging Palestinian residents’ livelihoods. The video below from Tayush shows a recent incident in which settlers attempted to destroy water pipes in the Hebron district.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER8VKHwgxns

The water shortage in the Occupied Territories is a major violation of the basic human rights of Palestinians. Israel’s control over and unequal distribution of water resources has been an increasingly harmful policy since 1967 as Palestinian consumption needs have increased with population but not been met due to both neglect of existing infrastructure and failure to construct new water infrastructure, especially in rural areas. There are also numerous restrictions placed on Palestinians right to access water for example by constructing wells. As well as deliberate sabotage by settlers, leakage from pipes due to defective maintenance means that one-third of the amount of the water supplied to the West Bank annually is lost.

Under international law (Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 which prohibits an occupying state from discriminating between residents of occupied territory) Israel’s clear discrimination in terms of quantity and regularity of water to supply to settlements as opposed to Palestinian areas is illegal. During the summer Palestinians’ water supplies are often reduced even further in order to meet increased demand from settlements.

http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/6756482d86146898c125641e004aa3c5

Army vandalism in Hebron: soldiers destroy family’s well in Wad Lerus

3 August 2010 | ISM Media

Yesterday morning (2 August 2010) a group of Israeli soldiers, reportedly drunk, used two bulldozers to destroy a well that belonged to a family living in Wad Lerus, Hebron.

Several ISM activists went out to talk to members of the Al Jaabel family in Wad Lerus, close to the Kyriat Arba settlement in Hebron, yesterday afternoon.

The family members we talked to were very upset since Hebron already has limited water supply, and they depend on this private well in front of their house as a water source, as do some of their neighbours. They had also invested a lot of resources, both on building the well and filling it with water.

They explained that a group of approximately 50 soldiers and border police arrived at the family home at 11:00 in the morning on Monday. The soldiers were reported to be drunk, drinking cans of beer while carrying out the destruction work. ISM activists observed empty beer cans scattered around the destroyed well.

The family said that soldiers and border police brought two bulldozers, and that these were used to destroy the walls at the side of the well, causing huge rocks to fall down into it. When the family tried to stop the soldiers, they were met with violence and aggression, including towards the women. The soldiers also destroyed the gate to the house, which was now standing at the side, off the hinge. The attack lasted for about 30 minutes, and severe damage was done to the well during this time. Several water pipes were also cut off.

At the time ISM visited the family, they were about to empty the well since they fear that children might fall into it. There used to be an edge preventing this possibility, which was bulldozed down by the soldiers. The family told us that they had just bought and refilled the well with 80 cubic meters of water, to the cost of 2000 shekels, and now they had to see it all going to waste. The incident was the first time they had experienced a military attack of this nature, and even though they fear it will happen again, they have no other choice but to try and rebuild the well.