16 Israeli Land Grab and Forced Population Transfer of Palestinians have been built on lands seized by Israel through various means.61 The colonies themselves occupy only approximately 7 percent of West Bank land. However, in addition to this figure, land held in reserve Jewish regional councils amounts to approximately 35 percent of West Bank land.62 Many more military orders affect the use, by Palestinians, of their land. Among the most impactful of these orders are those relating to the use of water. Pursuant to Military Order 158, Palestinians are required to obtain permits from the Israeli authorities to dig or to expand wells on their land.63 The routine denial of such permits is central to the fact that average per capita Palestinian water consumption is about 30 percent lower than the amount recommended by the World Health Organization and less than a quarter of that in Israel.64 After the Oslo Agreement In the West Bank, the current land-ownership structure was created by the process of land acquisition and subsequent allocation (primarily for colonies), which “formed the basis of the administrative division” of that region under the Oslo Agreement65 of 1995.66 According to that arrangement, as seen above, the West Bank is divided into Areas A, B and C. Some 149 mainly small villages, home to 47,000 Palestinians, are entirely located in Area C itself. Another 100,000 Palestinians live in Area C, in villages that have part of their built-up area within Areas A or B.67 Planning in Area C is governed by the same Mandatory regional outline plans that largely determined what land became Areas A and B, as well as by a number of ‘special’ outline plans drawn up by the Israeli authorities. The Mandatory Plans have been interpreted in such a way as to render it almost completely impossible to obtain a building permit.68 As regards the special outline plans, “their primary goal is to define a limited area outside which Palestinian construction is almost totally prohibited”.69 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 B’Tselem, Land Grab, 21. BADIL and COHRE, Ruling Palestine, 114. BADIL and COHRE, Ruling Palestine, 91. Thirsting for Justice, ‘Thirsting for Justice FAQ’, Thirsting for Justice: Palestinian Rights to Water and Sanitation, n.d.; available from http://www.thirstingforjustice.org/?page_id=1303; accessed 22 April 2013. The full name of the agreement is “The Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip” (1995), also known as Oslo II or Taba. Bimkom, The Prohibited Zone: The Israeli Planning Policy in the Palestinian Villages in Area C (Jerusalem, June 2008), 34. Bimkom, The Prohibited Zone: The Israeli Planning Policy in the Palestinian Villages in Area C, 16. Bimkom, The Prohibited Zone: The Israeli Planning Policy in the Palestinian Villages in Area C, 38. Bimkom, The Prohibited Zone: The Israeli Planning Policy in the Palestinian Villages in Area C, 90.