Occupied Jerusalem- “Access to safe, affordable and adequate drinking water and sanitation services is a basic human right, and this is essential for sustaining healthy livelihoods and preserving the dignity of people. International human rights law obligates states to work to achieve universal access to water for all without Discrimination, giving priority to those most in need.”
A visitor to the United Nations website can view this text under “The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Right to Water and Sanitation Services,” but Jerusalemites – especially those who live in the neighborhoods and towns of Jerusalem located behind the separation wall – were deprived of drinking water by the occupation force during the war. On Gaza, they fear the possibility of the weapon of thirst being raised in their faces if the war expands to include them, similar to what the occupation intended to do in Gaza.
When talking about the water crisis in the West Bank in general, it is necessary to address the strategic mistake committed by the Palestinian side during the negotiations of the Oslo Accords – which were signed in 1993 – by postponing water to final solution issues.
Siege and racism
Israel recognized the water rights of the Palestinians during the negotiations, but it did not adhere to what was stated in the agreements, and exceeded them in a way that depleted Palestinian water and threatened the groundwater reservoir with depletion or its water becoming unfit for consumption for all purposes.
Israel imposes a water blockade on Palestinian population centers and refuses to increase the amount of water needed for villages and cities, which leads to citizens being cut off from water for long periods, especially in the summer.
Perhaps reducing water shares for the towns and neighborhoods of Jerusalem behind the separation wall was one of the darkest scenarios during the war that was turning the page on its first year. On this occasion, Tel Aviv Tribune Net asked Khalil Abu Al-Rish, the mayor of Al-Eizariya, which was isolated from the city by the wall, about this crisis, and he said that 70% of They receive water from the Israeli “Gihon” company, and 30% from a well in the neighboring town of Abu Dis. Last March, the water reaching Al-Eizariya was reduced by 800 cups per day.
He pointed out that the Palestinian Water Authority provides them with water, according to the number of residents included in the Palestinian census, although the municipality provides this service to twice the number due to the presence of Palestinians from inside Jerusalem who are not included in this census, and thus providing water to citizens has become their main concern because its pumping is weak and does not reach the areas. The high.
Abu Al-Rish touched on the water network in the region and said that it is worn out as it was established in the 1970s, explaining that they have a loss rate of 42%, and all of these problems lead to the lack of access to water service to the citizen.
Continuous reduction
As for the Director of the Planning and Projects Unit in the Municipality of Al-Eizariya, Amani Abu Ziyad, she indicated that the municipality supplies water to about 50,000 citizens, and that the quantities of water that reach them are sufficient for only 24,000 citizens. However, it was reduced starting from the tenth of last March.
She added in her interview with Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “Before this date, we were obtaining 3,400 cups (cubic metres) per day, and this share was reduced to 2,600 cups, and this quantity is not sufficient, especially since we supply water to areas that do not belong to Al-Eizariya, but rather to other towns, and they consume 8% of our share.” In water, in addition to the three Bedouin communities that do not pay for this service, given that the Palestinian Authority covers it, we also supply water to areas that are now inside the separation wall.”
She concluded by saying that the problem does not lie only in drinking, but even the environmental and development projects that the world talks about as necessary, such as agriculture and others due to climate change, cannot be progressed towards, asking: How can a citizen be persuaded to cultivate the surroundings of his home if he does not have drinking water?
In turn, Ziad Jaffal, director of the Abu Dis Water Association, a Jerusalemite town that was removed from Jerusalem by the wall, said that the town used to receive 1,600 cups per day before this quantity was reduced to a thousand cups, which the association was forced to distribute to about 25,000 people.
He added – in his conversation with Tel Aviv Tribune Net – that the town’s daily need for water is estimated at 3,500 cups, but this quantity did not reach even before the outbreak of the war in light of the occupation’s control of this basic service.
When asked whether citizens fear that the weapon of thirst will be raised in their faces if the war expands to include Jerusalem, the association’s director confirmed that “this nightmare is really haunting the citizens, especially since in the event of a power outage as the war expands, the water service will stop automatically due to the association’s inability at that time.” Fetching water from the main well.
He added, “Sometimes we receive deliberately weak electricity from the Israeli side, affecting operational capacity and the process of pumping water. Despite the fears of citizens, they are unable so far to store water for the unknown future because they are unable to obtain it now, and most of them do not have wells to collect it when pumping it to “their areas.”
The residents of the town of Kafr Aqab, north of occupied Jerusalem, are still suffering from water outages, for more than 3 months, as they objected on the ground and judicially several times, and the occupation government recently responded to them – in the words of the Minister of Energy – saying, “The Palestinian Authority must prepare infrastructure to accommodate additional quantities of water.” “.
The occupation was a promise… pic.twitter.com/tSijUSpniK
– Jerusalem Compass (@alqudsalbawsala) September 22, 2024
Necessary connection
The head of the North Jerusalem Neighborhoods Committee, Munir Zaghir, confirms that the water that reaches the Kafr Aqab neighborhood behind the wall is linked to that reaching the Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, and that the reduction in the share of Jerusalemites living in this neighborhood began last May.
The Israeli company Mekorot claimed that it reduced the water supply by about 50% because the pipes were worn out and had to be replaced, which affected the normal functioning of daily life for more than 100,000 Jerusalemites living in buildings, most of which were built in a random vertical manner.
Although there was a 20% improvement in water service access to this neighborhood, Zaghir revealed – to Tel Aviv Tribune Net – that Jerusalemites fear the horrific racist Israeli policies that will be practiced against them if the battlefield expands to include Jerusalem.
“All of our lives are linked to Israel. We get electricity, water and treatment through them, and there are constant attempts to kneel down, but our people did not kneel and will not kneel in the future and will not be affected by water outages or other interruptions because they are accustomed to withstanding all circumstances,” Zaghir added.
Jerusalemites who live in the neighborhoods located behind the separation wall fear that reducing the share of water supplied to them by Israeli companies is a step towards removing these areas from the boundaries of the Jerusalem municipality to achieve demographic superiority in favor of the Jews in the Holy City.
