Battle for resources in Hebron

International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC)

17 September 2007

Conflict between Palestinians and settlers over water and land is all too apparent in the hills to the south of the West Bank city of Hebron. Settlements often disconnect Palestinians from their land, limit their movement and restrict access to water supplies.

By Colin Bell

According to a report from the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) entitled ’The Humanitarian Impact of Israeli Infrastructure in the West Bank’, this has had a severe impact on Palestinian rural areas.

The small village of Um al Kahir receives its water through a network of thin pipes once used by the military. These pipes are not sufficient for their needs and villagers are unable to refurbish them. Expensive water is brought in by tankers to supplement the existing supply. In contrast, settlements are connected to the mains network and even their chicken huts have running water and electricity.

OCHA said that, according to the Oslo agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the former received six times more aquifer water than that allocated to the Palestinians. Consumption of water per person in the West Bank is much lower than World Health Organization standards.

Shlomo Dror, a spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Defense, said that under the Oslo Accords, Israel was obliged to increase the supply of water to Palestinians by three per cent each year. "In fact," he said," last year, for example, we increased the allocation by eight per cent." He went on to say that the Palestinians needed to invest more in purification systems in order to maximize the use of the water they have.

Lost grazing land

In Um al Kahir water supplies are not the only source of conflict. Villagers have had to face house demolitions and the gradual shrinkage of their grazing land. "Now it costs us more to feed our animals. We have to buy in fodder rather than let them graze," said farmer Sheikh Khalil Hathallia.

Sheikh Khalil’s neighbor, Sliman Hathallia, told the report that in recent years his land had been taken by settlers. "By 2006 they had grabbed all my land," he said, pointing to the new houses in the spreading settlement. He also said that there had been violent confrontations with both settlers and the Israeli army. His wife was injured when the army came to demolish houses last February. They were destroyed because the villagers did not have permits from the department of Israeli Civil Administration.

Similarly, the UN Development Program set up generators in the village. Palestinians were prevented from installing a network which would have provided their homes with electricity." I won’t leave here. If they want me to move I will, but only if I can go back to Tel Arad," Sliman said. Tel Arad is where he was born in what is now Israel.

All the inhabitants of Um al Kahir are refugees from the 1948 war and registered with UNWRA, the agency for Palestinian refugees.

In the village of Susya, just further south, a similar situation exists. In 1985, the Israeli authorities declared the residents’ land an archaeological zone. They were forced to move to land nearby but prevented from building on it. Now tents and other temporary structures provide them with shelter.

Water becomes a particularly scarce commodity between July and October when rain-water supplies in the cisterns start to run low. Settlers stop the villagers from accessing many of their wells and use the water for themselves. "We had to buy back our water from the settlement," said Muhammaed Nawaja. "We can’t access the land near the settlements and then the settlers come and start to work it. They are trying to take it over and the army doesn’t stop them."

Dror, who acknowledges that there is conflict over land, said that Israel does crack down on illegal acts committed by settlers and does not distinguish between Jews and Palestinians. He said, "The Palestinians always have the option of going to the Israeli High Court to contest land claims."

Following a recent case, the court ordered the Israeli authorities to dismantle an 80cm wall preventing Palestinians from accessing grazing land. The costs amounted to US$20m, money which, according to one UN aid worker, could have been better used to help poor Palestinians.

Israel, unlike the international community, does not view its settlements as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and maintains that the West bank is not occupied territory.