Ref: 36/2023
Date: 22 March 2023
Time: 10:20 GMT
Today, 22 March 2023, marks the World Water Day that was designated by the United Nation (UN) in 1993 to accelerate change to solve and focus on water crisis and tie progress in this regard with all key global issues such as health, food security, gender equality, employment, education, industry and peace.
The activities this year is launched under the theme “Accelerating the Change” to solve the water and sanitation crisis. At the Palestinian level, efforts and steps taken to achieve water security and sustainable development are slow-paced in the face of the ongoing Israeli discriminatory policies and its control over 85% of Palestinian water resources, including groundwater basins and the Jordan River Basin water resources.
Clearly, Israel perpetuates a water-apartheid policy, which amounts to a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Palestinian human rights organizations (Al-Haq, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights PCHR, Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights) submitted a legal file to the ICC on the Israeli violations of exploiting and appropriating the Palestinian natural resources, providing a reasonable basis to believe that Israeli occupation have committed the war crimes of extensive destruction and appropriation of property, pillage, and destruction and seizure of property.1
Forcibly denying Palestinians access to and exploitation of their legitimate water resources impede the efforts endeavored to achieve sustainable development and jeopardize realization of Palestinians’ rights, especially the right to an adequate standard of living, right to safe and clean water. As a result of Israeli control over Palestinian water resources, the daily allocation per capita from consumed water decreased from 180 l/c/d to 82-89 l/c/d, while per capita share of fresh water is only 21 liters per day in the Gaza Strip. The average Palestinian water consumption per capita is still less than the minimum recommended level globally according to the standards of the World Health Organization, which is 100 liters per day. Meanwhile, the Israeli daily allocation per capita is more than three times that of the Palestinian individual, about 300 liters per day for the Israeli individual. While in Israeli settlements, this rate doubles for Israeli settlers to more than 7 times than the Palestinian per capita consumption. Moreover, the Israeli occupation forces the Palestinians to compensate the shortage of water resources by purchasing water from Israeli companies, so that the purchased quantities reach 22% of the water available in Palestine. 2
In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation has undermined the capabilities of governmental bodies to manage the water issue by targeting the infrastructure and water networks during Israeli offensives on the Gaza Strip, as well as imposing restrictions on the supply of 109 water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) items to Gaza under the pretext of “dual use items”.3 The occupation has also built a number of water dams along the borders with the Gaza Strip to prevent the rainwater from flowing into the Gaza Strip and stop the flow of valleys from the West Bank mountains, depriving the groundwater aquifer of the Strip from its resources. If these dams have become full, the Israeli authorities will open them without prior notice, drowning Palestinian homes and hundreds of dunums of agricultural lands in eastern Gaza City; the latest was on 20 March 2023 and has caused severe damage to house, agricultural crops, and properties.
Moreover, the ongoing Palestinian political division dramatically contributes to the setback and weakness of the local and municipal bodies’ performance when facing challenges of developing and providing proper services to the Gaza Strip population, as 35% of the Gaza Strip population has not yet joint the basic sanitation network, mainly obstructing the efforts to improve the water resources via the coastal groundwater aquifer, and to stop sewage drainage into the aquifer. This has rendered more than 97% of the coastal basin water incompatible with the World Health Organization standards.
Accordingly, PCHR:
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