CPTnet
June 29, 1999
HEBRON: TWENTY PERCENT FOR THEE AND EIGHTY PERCENT FOR ME
by KR Kamphoefner

Some 200,000 Palestinians are suffering from a severe water
shortage this summer. This has been a year of drought; the much desired
winter rains failed to come. But the lack of water is exacerbated by its
unequal distribution, since Mekarot, the national Israeli water monopoly,
allots 80 percent of the water to Israeli population centers on both sides
of the Green line, according to a recent article in Israeli newspaper
Ha'aretz June 21, 1999 (the Greenline is the 1948 armistice line between
the West Bank and Israel).

The West Bank city of Hebron is at the highest elevation and the last city
served on the water line. With water in short supply, water pressure is
particularly poor this summer. Therefore, already at the beginning of June
the Palestinian municipal government of Hebron began rotating the supply of
water to various parts of the city. The Hebron Municipality confirms that
it pumps water to most parts of the city once every two weeks. To cope
with this lack of regular distribution, virtually every Palestinian
household has several rooftop tanks for storing water.

On the way to Jerusalem on Sunday, we passed the Israeli settlement of
Efrat, which snakes its way across ten hilltops in the West Bank. There I
saw sprinklers watering an expanse of grass, an oddity in this desert
climate, where water evaporation accounts for the largest losses of water.
The Israeli Defense Forces regularly truck in water to the settlements.

The water problem is caused, says Mekarot, by Palestinians
stealing water, illegally tapping into water pipes, and illegally building
cisterns and wells. Palestinians must obtain permission from the Israelis
if they want to be connected to existing water lines. Since the occupation
of the West Bank in 1967, all water resources have been declared the
property of the Israeli state, and Palestinians generally have been
prohibited from building cisterns or wells by Israeli Military Orders 158
and 291. Cisterns have
frequently been bulldozed, including several in the Beqa'a Valley just
outside Hebron this past May.

In 1995 under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Water Authority was given
the management of water resources and waste water in the West Bank, but the
flow and volume of the water to be used by Palestinians is controlled by
Israel.

There is some loss of water due to theft by large farmers,
especially in areas C, suggested the Hebron Municipality spokesperson (under
the Oslo agreements, areas C
are under Israeli control). The Israeli Defense Forces,
accompanied by Mekarot authorities, have confiscated the
irrigation pipes from the fields of farmers it accuses of stealing water,
most recently witnessed by CPT Hebron on April 29 (see "Conversations
during Confiscation", forthcoming).

The U.S. Agency for International Development has built two new wells for
use by the Hebron Municipality. These wells are
expected to provide 5,000 cubic meters per day for Palestinians in Hebron.
They are currently being tested and are expected to be operational in a
matter of days. Mekarot provides 5,000 cubic meters per day. The demand
in Hebron is 24,000 cubic meters daily, according to the Hebron
Municipality, and they fear that Mekarot will discontinue or decrease its
provision once the wells are in operation.

The issue of water will not be decided in the peace process until the Final
Status negotiations, still a distant dream. As is said in Arabic, "Allaho
allam"-- "only God knows" how far in the future those discussions will
finally begin. But clearly eighty percent of the water for Israelis and
twenty percent for Palestinians is unequal. The per capita consumption of
West Bank Palestinians is 50 to 85 liters of water per day, while Israeli
settlers use 280 to 300 liters per person per day (Ha'aretz, 20 August
1998).

"A recent study by the World Bank shows that the Palestinians are the most
thrifty consumers of water in the Middle East, but even they cannot
increase the supply by striking a rock" (Ha'aretz, 21 June 1999).