Access to Water in the West Bank131 Unlike some other areas in the region, the oPt does not suffer from natural fresh water scarcity.132 The West Bank contains two major fresh water sources: the Mountain Aquifer, which lies under the West Bank and extends into Israel, and the Jordan River, which separates Israel and the West Bank from Jordan.133 These sources combined are capable of providing an adequate water supply for Palestinians living in the West Bank, yet water deprivation has reached crisis levels in that area. This deprivation, therefore, is not naturally occurring but rather strategically engineered by Israel through various policies and practices that deny Palestinians access to each water source in specific ways.134 Israeli control over Palestinian Water The Jordan River used to provide around 30 million cubic meters (MCM) of water per year to the West Bank before the 1967 occupation, but Israel has since denied access to river water by declaring all the land along the shores military security zones.135 As a result, Palestinian usage of river water has been obliterated, while Israel’s annual use has risen to 600-700 MCM.136 In 131 The fact that this section focuses on the West Bank rather than the Gaza Strip is not an indication that Palestinians in Gaza are not subject to policies denying them access to water. While Gaza’s access to the Coastal Aquifer is unimpeded by Israel and is therefore not technically denied access to its water resource, Israel has diverted streams flowing into Gaza and denied its population access to other Palestinian water sources in the West Bank. This has forced them to dangerously overdraw from the Coastal Aquifer, leading to contamination from wastewater and seawater and making 90-95 percent of it unsafe to drink. In this case, there could be an argument made that this is a de facto denial of access to water. However, this section highlights the West Bank because of the uniquely transparent example it provides of the design and coordination of various natural resource policies and practices specifically aimed at population transfer. See, Amnesty International, Troubled Waters, 14, supra note 37. 132 EWASH and al-Haq, Joint Parallel Report submitted by the Emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene group (EWASH) and Al-Haq to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the occasion of the consideration of the Third Periodic Report of Israel: Israel’s violations of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights with regard to the human rights to water and sanitation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, , 2011, 6, available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/ docs/ngos/EWASH-Al-Haq_Israel_CESCR47.pdf [hereinafter EWASH and al-Haq, Joint Parallel Report]. 133 Elena Lazarou, Water in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Briefing January 2016, European Parliamentary Research Service, European Parliament, 2016, 26, available at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ RegData/etudes/BRIE/2016/573916/EPRS_BRI(2016)573916_EN.pdf [hereinafter Lazarou, Water in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict]. 134 EWASH and al-Haq, Joint Parallel Report, 6-7, supra note 132. 135 UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), The Besieged Palestinian Agricultural Sector, New York and Geneva, 2015, 26, available at: http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/ gdsapp2015d1_en.pdf [hereinafter UNCTAD, Besieged Palestinian Agricultural Sector]. 136 Jan Selby, “Cooperation, Domination and Colonisation: The Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee,” Water Alternatives 6, no.1 (2009): 5, available at: http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/ volume6/v6issue1/196-a6-1-1/file [hereinafter Selby, “Cooperation, Domination and Colonisation”]. 39