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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"><font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://imemc.org/article/al-haq-world-water-day-israels-discriminatory-policies-constitute-a-systemic-attack-on-the-palestinian-peoples-right-to-water-and-sanitation/">https://imemc.org/article/al-haq-world-water-day-israels-discriminatory-policies-constitute-a-systemic-attack-on-the-palestinian-peoples-right-to-water-and-sanitation/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Israel’s Discriminatory Policies
Constitute a Systemic Attack on the Palestinian People’s Right
to Water and Sanitation <br>
</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">By IMEMC & Agencies -
March 23, 2021<br>
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<p>Since the initial observation of the United Nations
World Water Day on 22 March 1993, Israel, as the
Occupying Power in the Occupied Palestinian Territory
(OPT), has continued to consolidate and expand its
domination of the Palestinian people through its
discriminatory and unlawful policies and practices
around the control and distribution of water.</p>
<p>The human right to water encompasses a number of
elements, including availability, quality, and
accessibility, and includes the ability to both
physically access water and the principle of
non-discrimination in the distribution of water.</p>
<p>The OPT’s natural water supply comes from three main
sources: the Jordan Valley, the Mountain Aquifer, which
stretches from the West Bank across the Green Line, and
the Coastal Aquifer, located around the Gaza Strip. Each
of these sources are under Israeli military control, and
have been the subject of extensive restrictions
introduced either by the Israeli occupying forces or
Mekorot, the Israeli national water company, into which
the Palestinian water system has been integrated.</p>
<p>Palestinian direct access to water in the occupied West
Bank is denied in favour of providing access to illegal
Israeli settlements. Approximately 50,000 Palestinians
residing in Area C of the West Bank are denied access to
clean, safe, and affordable water, while as of 2016,
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank consumed on
average only 73 litres of water per day, well below the
World Health OrganiZation’s (WHO) recommended 100
litres. </p>
<p>Conversely, Israeli settlers consumed approximately 369
litres per day, over three times the recommended
average. It is estimated that Israeli settlers, <strong>illegally</strong>
residing in the OPT, consume three to eight times more
water than the entire Palestinian population of the West
Bank, excluding East Jerusalem.</p>
<p>In the occupied Gaza Strip, subject to an ongoing 13
year closure and blockade, itself constituting
collective punishment of some 2 million Palestinians,
only one in ten households have direct access to clean
and safe water. Only 5% of the water supply in the Gaza
Strip is provided by Israel, the Occupying Power, and <a
href="https://imemc.org/article/statistics-bureau-only-4-of-household-members-in-gaza-strip-have-access-to-safely-managed-water-that-is-free-of-pollution/"
rel="noopener" target="_blank">less than 4%</a> of
Gaza’s fresh water supply is fit for human use and
consumption.</p>
<p>Palestinian Bedouin communities in the Naqab within the
Green Line have been significantly affected, where
80,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel have no access to
emergency medical services and 56,000 residents of
villages unrecognized by Israel have inadequate access
to safe, clean running water. </p>
<p>Palestinian refugees residing in overcrowded refugee
camps and Palestinian prisoners facing overcrowding and
unsanitary conditions in Israeli prisons are rendered
more susceptible to the pandemic and denied access to
adequate water and sanitation.</p>
<p>Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘To the fullest extent of the means available to it,
the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and
maintaining, with the co-operation of national and
local authorities, the medical and hospital
establishments and services, public health and hygiene
in the occupied territory, with particular reference
to the adoption and application of the prophylactic
and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread
of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical
personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry
out their duties.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That Israel, as Occupying Power, has failed, and is
continuing to disregard its obligations under
international humanitarian law and human rights law, in
the context of the COVID-19 pandemic is borne out not
only by the absence of any effort at adopting and
applying ‘the prophylactic and preventive measures
necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases
and epidemics,’ but by Israel’s discriminatory policies
and practices, which actively deny Palestinians access
to adequate water and sanitation.</p>
<p>Israeli ‘Water-Apartheid’ constitutes a systemic attack
on the Palestinian people’s right to water and
sanitation as well as a concerted assault on the broader
right of Palestinians to the highest attainable standard
of health, at a time of unprecedented global crisis. </p>
<p>Accordingly, <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/"
rel="noopener" target="_blank">Al-Haq</a> calls upon:</p>
<li>Third party States, the international community, and
private entities to recognise Israeli policies and
practices with regards to access to water in the OPT as
a gross and systematic denial of the right to health and
to water and sanitation, </li>
<li>Third party States, the international community to
recognise the contributing factor of the construction,
and maintenance, of Israel’s institutionalised regime of
systematic racial domination and oppression, amounting
to the crime of apartheid, over the Palestinian people
as a whole.</li>
<li>In line with their obligations erga omnes under
international law, we urge all States to take positive
measures, address the root causes of the apartheid and
occupation and to bring this unlawful situation to an
end.</li>
<p>~ See the full report <a
href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/18062.html"
rel="noopener" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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