It is easy to identify the Israeli settlements – which are illegal under international law – that are encroaching on more and more of the occupied West Bank.
They stand in stark contrast to the arid villages of the occupied West Bank, where a severe lack of water forces farmers to abandon their precious date palms and desert their greenhouses.
Palestinians claim that they can barely access enough water to bathe their children and wash their clothes, let alone sustain livestock and grow fruit trees.
In comparison, the Israeli settlements appear as oases. Flowers flourish, farmed fish swim in orderly rows of ponds, and children play in community pools.
In the herding communities of the northern Jordan Valley, Palestinians consume only 26 litres (7 gallons) of water per day – well below the minimum requirement of 50-100 litres recommended by the World Health Organization, according to B’Tselem.
In contrast, Israeli settlers in the Jordan Valley consume 400-700 litres per capita per day, as reported by the rights group.
The 500,000 Jewish settlers residing in the West Bank are connected to the Israeli water grid, which provides them with a continuous water supply. However, Palestinian cities are not connected to this grid. Consequently, Palestinians receive water sporadically during scorching summers.
Since the interim peace accords in the 1990s, which granted Israel control over 80 percent of the water reserves and most other aspects of Palestinian life, Palestinian towns and cities across the occupied West Bank have suffered. These “interim” accords are still in effect today.
These accords also established a limited self-rule Palestinian government that obtains water for its growing cities by tapping into the rapidly depleting reservoirs it shares with Israel and purchasing water from Israel’s state-run company.
This leaves Palestinians living in the 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli civil control stranded, disconnected from both Israeli and Palestinian water grids.
With regional droughts worsening, temperatures rising, and Israel’s far-right government solidifying military rule over the occupied territory, Palestinians claim that their water problems have worsened.
The water supply is shrinking as the demands of Israeli towns take priority over Palestinian needs. In areas where Israel has full control in the occupied West Bank, Palestinians are unable to dig or deepen wells without difficult-to-obtain permits.
Since 2021, Israeli authorities have demolished nearly 160 Palestinian reservoirs, sewage networks, and wells across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, citing lack of authorization, according to the United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA.
Original from www.aljazeera.com