Amnesty International is accusing Israel of pumping disproportionate amounts of drinking water from an aquifer it controls in the West Bank, depriving local Palestinians of their fair share.
The London-based human rights group also said in a report released yesterday that Israel has blocked infrastructure projects that would improve existing water supplies to Palestinians — both in the West Bank and those living in the Gaza Strip.
“This scarcity has affected every walk of life for Palestinians,” Amnesty’s researcher on Israel, Donatella Rovera, said in an interview on Monday ahead of the report’s release. “A greater amount of water has to be granted to them.”
PHOTO: REUTERS
Israeli officials rebutted the accusations.
Water is a major point of contention between Israelis and Palestinians and is considered an issue that must be resolved before the two sides could make peace.
The issue is further compounded by the split in Palestinian territories, with the moderate Fatah movement governing the West Bank, while the militant Hamas rules the coastal Gaza Strip.
Israelis use more than four times the amount of water per person on average than do Palestinians, whose consumption falls far below the minimum amount recommended by the WHO, the report said.
The report focuses on the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank. It says that Israel uses more than 80 percent of water drawn from the aquifer, and while the Jewish state has other water sources, the aquifer is the West Bank’s sole supply.
As a result, the 450,000 Israelis who live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem use more water than the 2.3 million Palestinian residents, Amnesty said.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev called Amnesty’s claims “completely ludicrous,” and said Israel holds the legal right to the aquifer since it was the first to discover, develop and pump from it.
Regev said Israel pumps less water from the Mountain Aquifer today than it did in 1967 and Palestinian consumption of fresh water has actually tripled in that time.
He blamed the Palestinians for not investing in development in the West Bank and said they have failed even to drill wells that have already been approved.
Amnesty charged that Israel routinely denies Palestinians permits to launch desperately needed water sanitation and infrastructure projects in the West Bank.
Shaul Arlosoroff, a leading Israeli authority on water acquisition and use, said Israeli restrictions in the West Bank are meant to protect an already taxed aquifer from overpumping.
Amnesty also cited serious problems with water supply to the Gaza Strip.
Since Hamas seized control of the coastal territory in 2007, Gaza’s long-standing problems with sewage and water sanitation facilities have deteriorated, Rovera said. During Israel’s offensive in Gaza last year, water and sewage pipes suffered severe damage.
Rovera said the water situation in Gaza had reached a “crisis point,” with 90 percent to 95 percent of the water supply contaminated and unfit for human consumption.
An Israeli blockade of Gaza has halted any repairs to the strip’s overburdened sewage and water networks, preventing materials and equipment to repair the infrastructure from getting in, Rovera said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese