education services due to a lack of supplies, infrastructure and classroom
space. Palestinian students have been either forced to learn in classrooms
that fail to meet the Palestinian Ministry of Education’s health and safety
regulations or to move to schools outside the Valley.280
While these inadequate services affect all communities in the Jordan Valley,
the 20,000281 Palestinians living in Bedouin and herding communities located
in Area C have been the targets of additional Israeli policies and practices
causing them to receive disproportionately less service coverage than
others. All of the seven Bedouin localities in the Jordan Valley are prevented
from accessing water, electricity, roads, phone lines, and waste and sewage
disposal.282 As these communities rely heavily on water to sustain their
families and flocks, many of these additional policies and practices have
been designed specifically to affect their ability to access water, which they
accomplish through transporting it to their villages via water tankers. The
Israeli army has also made it a practice to confiscate their water tankers,
particularly at the height of summer when they and their flocks need it
most.283 As a result, water consumption in Bedouin communities fell to only
20 lpcd, far under the minimum of 100 lpcd recommended by the WHO,
and the 240 lpcd made accessible to the Jewish-Israeli colonizers in the
area.284 They have also taken to restricting the movement of these tankers
by confiscating them at checkpoints on their way to collect water. Amnesty
International has reported that villagers in Hadidiya and Humsa were
forced to relocate twice after their tankers were confiscated and they were
asked to pay an impossible sum for their return along with a signed pledge
that they would not attempt to reach the water source again.285 It becomes
apparent that not only have these actions been put in place by Israel to
force herders to abandon their communities and way of life, but also that
these actions are extremely effective.
“I live in Khirbet Al-Samrah with my family, where I own 120 dunams since
before 1967. Our community consists of five or six families and we are
shepherds; the livestock is our only source of livelihood.
Most of the residents of this community left in recent years, they were forced
280 Ibid.
281 B’Tselem, “What is Area C?,” supra note 268.
282 MA’AN, Eye on the Jordan Valley,29, supra note 276.
283 Amnesty International, Troubled Waters, 40, supra note 35.
284 B’tselem, “Restrictions on Access to Water and non-Development of Water Infrastructure in Area C,”
28 September 2016, available at: http://www.btselem.org/water/restrictions_in_area_c
285 Amnesty International, Troubled Waters, 41, supra note 37.
76
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