Without water, Palestine can forget about statehood

The recent French report denouncing Israel’s water apartheid confirmed what many Palestinians already knew—water resources in the Occupied Territories are controlled by Israel. Palestinians, unlike Israeli settlers, find their access to water severely restricted. Palestinians discuss life without enough water.

Water, illustrative photo (photo: flickr/Anders Adermark) 

While all the Palestinian communities in the West Bank face water shortages, some are more affected than others. The Bethlehem district – which is comprised of Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Ad Doha, Al Khader as well as Aida, Dheisheh and Al-Azza refugee camps – is on the top of the list.

“The summer season is a disaster for us,” says Doctor Simon Lagare, the General Director of the Water District in Bethlehem. “This office is constantly overwhelmed by people complaining about the lack of water in their houses and we are helpless. We mutter excuses after excuses but the reality is that we can’t give them what they want—water.”

Water for the area is distributed by local Palestinian authorities after it is received from the West Bank Water Department (WBWD), which is located in Israeli-controlled Area C, north east of Bethlehem. The WBWD shares its aquifer with Israel’s National Water Company Mekorot but, because the Oslo Accords stipulate that the Palestinians can only use water from 130m upwards--and much of the water is found deeper than that--the Palestinian supplier is forced to buy water from the Israeli wells.

It has been estimated that Israel controls around 70% percent of the water resources in the West Bank. While Palestinians are denied access to an equitable share of water and are increasingly affected by the lack of adequate water supplies, Israeli settlers face no such challenges.

“Have you ever been inside an Israeli settlement?” Charlie, a Palestinian who lives in Bethlehem’s Old City, asks. “Well, if you have the chance to see one from within, you will see how luxuriously the settlers live. They have flourishing gardens, fully filled swimming pools and surely they don’t care about the water they use for washing, cleaning or gardening as much as we do.”

The Western aquifer is Palestinians’ only remaining resource of water. Israel, on the other hand, has two other main water resources and limits the amount of water available to Palestinians to no more than 20 per cent annually, even though Palestinians constitute a majority of the West Bank's population.

As Charlie says, “If [in the future] the Israeli settlers believe the water at their disposal is not enough, the only thing they have to do is turn off the tap of our supplying well and enjoy our tiny share of water as well.”

The hot and dry summer season is a difficult time for Palestinians in regards to water. The whole Bethlehem district is struck by a prolonged shortage of water and, although people react differently according to their financial status and the area they live in, everyone pays a price.

Majdi, who is the owner of a well-known Bedouin shop in the centre of Bethlehem, says that, last summer he had to buy four big tanks from the private Israeli suppliers because his area ran out of water for a month and a half. “Each of those tanks, he says, “costed 300% more than the average price but I had no choice.”

The internal water allocation within Palestinian areas is also a point of contention. Hotels, restaurants, and some factories depend on water to keep themselves afloat and they do anything they can – including paying exorbitant amounts of money to private suppliers – to take a chunk of the water.

“Bethlehem and Beit Sahour receive much more water than we do,” claims Akram, a young man living in Aida Camp. “In summer Aida Camp receives water just for 12 hours a week.”

Wisam Hasanat of the Ibdaa Centre, which is located in the Dheisheh refugee camp, recalls another internal problem that surfaced in 2009. “The water pumped to our houses was full of faeces and urine,” says Hasanat, “because our old water network – dating back to 1972 – had been built besides the sewage water and from [the latter's] many leaks the two waters were mixing up.”

Only when camp residents became sick after using the dirty water, and protests broke out in the camp, did the Palestinian authorities and UNRWA establish a committee to tackle the crisis.

“Eventually, we obtained a brand-new water network,” continues Hasanat, “but until today we haven’t seen any committee analysing the quality of the water we use.” Since the camp relies on the Israeli private suppliers and these suppliers don’t always filter the underground water before selling it, the situation is still far from being solved.

At the end of January, rehabilitation project of the water network in Bethlehem and surroundings will start with the supervision of the French Development Program (FDP). It will establish four water reservoirs and several pumping stations in this area.

“Even if the [new] network [will] work properly,” says Doctor Lagare, “the Israelis won’t give us the amount of water we need and deserve to live adequately."

"If a ‘viable state’ comprises security, borders and resources," he adds, "well, without water Palestine can forget [about becoming one].”