Water woes of Palestinians shed light on the dashed hopes of Oslo Accords
Palestinians complain of unequal access to clean water, even as Israel boasts a worldclass system with vast underground tunnels and pipes, coastal desalination plants, highefficiency water usage; residents point to unfair distribution of resources, bure
hirty years after the landmark Oslo Accords, Palestinian hopes for statehood seem as remote as ever and popular frustration is rife — nowhere more than over access to water.
The IsraeliPalestinian dispute centres on land but also on the water resources that sustain life in the sunparched land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river.
Hopes for peace were high when thenPalestinian leader Yasser Arafat shook hands with Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, watched by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
The historic deal they struck created a limited degree of Palestinian selfrule and was intended as a first step toward resolving the status of Jerusalem and the plight of Palestinian refugees.
The ultimate goal for many was the creation of a Palestinian state whose people would one day live freely and peacefully alongside Israel.
Instead, three decades on, Israeli settlements have mushroomed across the
Toccupied West Bank, deadly violence has flared, and the blockaded Gaza Strip is littered with the ruins of several wars.
Immediate concern
For Palestinian farmer Bassam Dudin, the most immediate concern is that he can no longer draw water from his wells, since Israeli forces came in July and poured cement into them.
“They didn’t give me any advance warning,” said Mr. Dudin, 47, standing amid sunscorched vegetables on his field at AlHijra village in the West Bank’s southern Hebron area.
“We are living in a very, very difficult situation.”
Israeli military authorities argued that Mr. Dudin, who holds a land title dating back to the era of Ottoman rule over historic Palestine, had tapped the groundwater illegally.
The body running civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, COGAT, argued that the wells were “drilled in violation of the construction agreement, harmed the natural water sources and posed a risk of contamination of the aquifer”.
The peace push of 1993 was meant to secure both Israelis and Palestinians fair access to water from the Jordan river, the Sea of Galilee, and the Mountain and Coastal Aquifers that stretch below the divided land.
But today, Palestinians complain of unequal access to clean water, even as Israel boasts a worldclass system with vast underground tunnels and pipes, coastal desalination plants, highefficiency water usage and wastewater recycling.
Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since the SixDay War of 1967, now controls its water infrastructure through the national water company Mekorot.
The Israeli firm also supplies 22% of water used by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, according to Palestinian data.
Need for permission
Mr. Dudin is not allowed to dig for water on his land without permission, under rules that were cemented by the Oslo Accords of the 1990s and followup agreements.
His farm lies in the 60% of the West Bank that was declared “Area C” and placed under Israeli Army control.
Area A is administered by the Palestinians and Area B is under mixed Israeli and Palestinian control.
Area C residents must seek Israeli permits for any construction, including wells, but in practice these are almost impossible to obtain.
This is despite the establishment of a Joint Water Committee under the Accords.
Palestinian former water negotiator Shaddad Attili ridiculed the committee as a “Mickey Mouse forum” in which, he said, Israel often rejects projects or stalls them for years.
“Whenever we say no to an Israeli project, they implement it anyway, because they do have power,” he charged.
Israel’s Water Authority declined to be interviewed and directed to COGAT, which also refused repeated requests to discuss the topic.
Rows of date palms and banana plants ring vegetable fields near the West Bank city of Jericho in the verdant Jordan Valley, seen as the Palestinian breadbasket.
Birdsong is interrupted by the occasional roar of Israeli warplanes above in the area from which, as well as from parts of the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces were meant to withdraw under the Oslo Accords.
But in many villages in the Jericho area too, water scarcity is an urgent problem, the result of what residents describe as unfair distribution of resources.
Water scarcity suffered by Palestinians is most acute in Gaza, the crowded and impoverished coastal enclave blockaded by Israel that is home to around 2.3 million people.
Past wars and restrictions on imports of construction materials, spare parts and fuel have devastated much of Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure, driving a public health crisis. the