From: Subject: Amnesty report: Palestinians denied fair access to water
Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Demand Dignity: Troubled waters - Palestinians denied fair access to water http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/israel-rations-palestinians-trickle-water-20091027 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. Image removed by sender. http://1..bp.blogspot.com/_uPzsiWdvLoQ/SF-A7lAVXdI/AAAAAAAAAY8/5Rzf3HPTBGI/s400/gaza+water+2.jpg 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. Image removed by sender. GazaChild.jpg image by profmarcus 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. <http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_tXdfKZSXN58/RoAenbr1aFI/AAAAAAAAAAc/IgE6bztE69Q/s1600-h/Picture+041.jpg> Image removed by sender. 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.” Download: * PDF <http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/027/2009/en/e9892ce4-7fba-469b-96b9-c1e1084c620c/mde150272009en.pdf> Index Number: MDE 15/027/2009 Date Published: 27 October 2009 Image removed by sender. http://palestinethinktank.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/gaza-refugees-water.jpg Image removed by sender. http://imeu.net/engine2/uploads/2/gas-gaza-siege.jpg http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Israel_rations_Palestinians_to_tric_10262009.html Israel rations Palestinians to trickle of Published: Monday October 26, 2009 Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of denying Palestinians adequate access to water while allowing Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank almost unlimited supplies. Israel, the human rights group said, restricts availability of water in the Palestinian territories "by maintaining total control over the shared resources and pursuing discriminatory policies." "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," Amnesty researcher Donatella Rovera said in a report. Israel consumes four times more water than Palestinians, who use an average of 70 litres (16 gallons) a day per person, according to the report entitled: "Troubled waters - Palestinians denied fair access to water." Amnesty said the "inequality" is even more pronounced in some areas of the West Bank where settlements use up to 20 times more water per capita than neighbouring Palestinian communities which survive on barely 20 litres (5.28 gallons) of water per capita a day. "Swimming pools, well-watered lawns and large irrigated farms in Israeli settlements in the OPT (occupied Palestinian territory) stand in stark contrast next to Palestinian villages whose inhabitants struggle even to meet their domestic water needs." The Israeli foreign ministry responded to a similar report by the World Bank in April, saying Israel shares water resources with Palestinians in a fair manner.. The ministry said that Palestinians have access to twice as much water as the 23.6 million cubic metres (833 million cubic feet) they are allocated annually under an agreement with Israel. The Amnesty report pointed out that Palestinians are not allowed to drill new wells or rehabilitate old ones without permits from the Israeli authorities, which are often impossible to get. In addition, many roads in the West Bank are closed or restricted to Palestinian traffic which forces water tankers to make long detours to supply communities not connected to the water network. The report 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. In the Gaza StripImage removed by sender. , the 22-day military offensive Israel launched on December 27 damaged water reservoirs, wells, sewage networks and pumping stations. Further aggravating an already dire situation, Israel and Egypt have sealed off the impoverished territory to all but basic goods since the Islamist Hamas movement seized control in June 2007, severely hampering the upkeep of basic infrastructure. The sewage system has been particularly hard-hit, as Israel does not allow the import of virtually any pipes or other metal equipment for fear it could be used by Palestinian militants to build rockets. "The coastal aquifer, Gaza's sole fresh water resource, is polluted by the infiltration of raw sewage from cesspits and sewage collection ponds and by the infiltration of sea water (itself also contaminated by raw sewage discharged daily into the sea near the coast) and has been degraded by over-extraction," Amnesty said. UN experts say the underground water supplies upon which Gaza's 1.5 million population depend are in danger of collapse. Researchers have found levels of nitrates rising as high as 331 milligrammes per litre, well above World Health Organisation guidelines for a maximum of 50. High nitrate concentrations in ground contamination can cause a form of potentially fatal anaemia among newborns known as "blue baby syndrome." "Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all restrictions it imposed 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," said Rovera. *** exposing the hidden truth for further educational research only *** CAVEAT LECTOR *** In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. NOTE: Some links may require cut and paste into your Internet Browser. Please check for daily real news posts and support the truth! 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