aiming to merely collect spring or rain water.168 Palestinians using water from
springs that have been illegally declared ‘state property’ by Israel have had
their water infrastructure confiscated.169 Other water infrastructure such as
cisterns, spring canals and agricultural pools are destroyed by Israeli forces
quite often, ostensibly because they had not been issued permits.170 Amnesty
International has reported that in the majority of Palestinian villages they
visited, cisterns were either destroyed or awaiting pending destruction by
the army.171 Prices for tanker water have become increasingly expensive
because Israeli checkpoints have prohibited or restricted Palestinian access
to main roads, forcing the tankers to take long detours.172 In the Jordan
Valley, where many Palestinian herder communities rely heavily on water to
survive, the Israeli army has attempted to force them to leave by confiscating
their water tankers during the height of summer when they need it most.173
Finally, the route of the Annexation and Separation Wall has been planned
in a way that cuts some villages off from their sources of water completely,
including agricultural villages that rely on that water for their crops.174 These
practices have put severe pressure on Palestinian residents to leave their
homes in order to seek areas with sufficient water access and supply.175 As
one Palestinian villager reported, “We spend a lot of money on water and
never have enough. They are trying to force us out of the area by all means,
taking our land is one way and limiting our access to water is another way.”176
“I’m from Safareen [located in Area C], I got married to a man from this village
and this is why I live here. I have seven children, five boys and two girls.
It was really hard to take care of a family of nine people in this town. You can’t
organize your life well at all; you don’t know how you are going to wash their
clothes, how you are going to do the dishes, clean your children and give them
showers. Everything is connected to water.
I remember before the colonies arrived, we had a permit and an agreement
to install a water pipe line and they had even started working on it. Then,
when the colonies expanded and got closer to us, they stopped working on
168 UNCTAD, Besieged Palestinian Agricultural Sector, 27, supra note 135.
169 Amnesty International, Troubled Waters, 5, supra note 37.
170 Id., 36-37.
171 Id., 44.
172 Id., 37.
173 Id., 40.
174 Id., 49.
175 D’Cunha, “The First Plague,” 302, supra note 145.
176 The villager is from Tuwani, in the Southern Hebron Hills. See, Amnesty International, Troubled
Waters, 39, supra note 37.
45
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