The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said 215,000 Palestinians in more than 150 villages are not connected to running water, and that Israel has discriminatory allocation. “At a time when the Israeli public debates whether to water the lawn or wash their car, Palestinians suffer from a shortage of water to meet their most basic needs,” B'Tselem said in a statement.
Nasir Eldin said that the reasons for the fatal water crisis which the Palestinians are enduring are overpopulation, the high standard of living of the settlements, the illegal waste of water for agricultural use, and Israeli negligence in maintaining the water tanks in the West Bank for more than 40 years, which has led to the loss of 11 percent of the total amount of water.
Even the Multilateral Water Resources Group, created in 1992 as part of the peace process negotiations, has failed to get the parties to move toward agreement on water sharing.
The Oslo Accord allows the Palestinians to dig a number of wells. However, not all of them are working. Nasir Eldin says, "What is left for the Palestinians is an observant conservation of the drinking water, and proper organization for the distribution of water. I don't have any good news for the Palestinian people, and we don't expect to have a solution for the current situations this summer."
“We are in a very bad situation,” then Palestinian Water Authority Chairman Nabil Sharif told a water conference in September 2000. “Unless the United States will do everything possible to convince the Israelis, at the end there will be no real peace if there is no water. If there will be no water, I don't think any agreement of peace will live more than two or three years.”
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002
Republished with permission from ENS online at: http://ens-news.com
Nasir Eldin said that the reasons for the fatal water crisis which the Palestinians are enduring are overpopulation, the high standard of living of the settlements, the illegal waste of water for agricultural use, and Israeli negligence in maintaining the water tanks in the West Bank for more than 40 years, which has led to the loss of 11 percent of the total amount of water.
Even the Multilateral Water Resources Group, created in 1992 as part of the peace process negotiations, has failed to get the parties to move toward agreement on water sharing.
The Oslo Accord allows the Palestinians to dig a number of wells. However, not all of them are working. Nasir Eldin says, "What is left for the Palestinians is an observant conservation of the drinking water, and proper organization for the distribution of water. I don't have any good news for the Palestinian people, and we don't expect to have a solution for the current situations this summer."
“We are in a very bad situation,” then Palestinian Water Authority Chairman Nabil Sharif told a water conference in September 2000. “Unless the United States will do everything possible to convince the Israelis, at the end there will be no real peace if there is no water. If there will be no water, I don't think any agreement of peace will live more than two or three years.”
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002
Republished with permission from ENS online at: http://ens-news.com