West Bank blog: Scarce water is such a precious commodity
16 Nov 2010
Fatima in the West Bank
By Jenny MartinYouth and Schools Campaigner, Oxfam South West
I am currently undertaking a two-month secondment in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories working with the Emergency Water Sanitation and Hygiene Advocacy Task Force to develop a global campaign on the right to water for Palestinians.
As part of my introduction to the impacts of the occupation in the West Bank I was taken to the South Hebron Hills, an area under complete Israeli control. Heading south in the West Bank the landscape became increasingly arid; beautiful, if desolate. To reach our destination we had to head off the tarmac road and drive on what was little more than a dirt track through the extremely bumpy hills.
After what felt like hours of off-roading passing a few isolated communities, we came upon a small group of tents which formed the local school in Khirbet al Fakheit. The school had only recently been established in the area and previously children had to leave their families and stay with relatives in the nearest town.
Access to essential services and facilities is still a major challenge in this area. There is no piped water at the school, and although they have had latrines installed there is not sufficient water to keep them clean. Water is provided in tankers driven many kilometres off-road from the nearest filling point and paid for by the local community. Tanking water is incredibly expensive and in some parts of the West Bank families spend as much as 40% of their income on water.
I met with some of the children, including Fatima who explained how her family often only had access to water for a few hours every four days.
More sustainable solutions including developing cisterns for collecting rainfall during the winter and providing more local filling points connected to the water network are extremely difficult to implement in this area as any work requires the permission of the Israeli military. Permission is rarely granted and any building without it, including rain-water harvesting cisterns, latrines or tents used as classrooms, is at risk of demolition.
The teachers at the school raised concerns that this year the dry season was lasting longer than normal and they would have expected some rains by now. Having campaigned on climate change in the South West it really brought home to me that this is a real threat to communities here. Without Israeli authorities granting Palestinians permission to develop their access to water and sanitation, the local communities have little capacity to reduce their vulnerability.
On our way back to the main road, only a few miles from the school, we passed an Israeli settlement (illegal under international law) with enough water to feed the luscious plants that surrounded it and a large industrial farming infrastructure. On average Israelis consume four times as much water as Palestinians. The contrast between the standard of living in the settlements and that of the children in the school I had just visited was stark.
Keep reading this blog as I will be writing more about life in the occupied Palestinian territories, including meeting with a family in Gaza.
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