Stop the Wall factsheet “Cutting the lifeline – Stop the Annexation of Palestinian water” highlights the strategic importance Israel gives to the usurpation and pillage of Palestinian water resources in its efforts to colonize and annex large parts of the West Bank. It further highlights the impact the proposed annexation plans will have on access to water and how they are building upon the pre-existing structure of water apartheid built by Israel over decades.
You can read and download the factsheet here.
Since the occupation of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, the first steps the occupation forces took were putting their hands on the water springs and rivers running throughout the Jordan Valley. They spread their hegemony over the water resources before they started practically dominating the land through the erection of settlements. The de jure annexation will perpetuate and worsen the de facto situation created since over five decades.”
Abu Mahmoud from Khallet Makhoul, northern Jordan Valley.
The factsheet is divided into four main chapters:
Weaponizing water for annexation
The water crisis that Palestinians have been facing is primarily man-made rather than a result of the region’s climate conditions. The deterioration of the water shortages that Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and other areas targeted by the impending annexation will encounter is also man-made and intentional. In fact, the areas in the occupied West Bank that have suffered over the last decades most from the ongoing measures of de facto annexation and are now slated for official de jure annexation are abundant with water and the sites of the most important water resources are located there.
Water apartheid
The Israeli occupation is an apartheid regime that produces and encodes unequal relationships with respect to water in order to coerce Palestinians into leaving their land.
Annexation – a fluid process
The so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ proposed by the Trump administration will reinforce Israeli occupation, colonization and ghettoization. This plan to legalize Israeli apartheid, will inherently legalize also the continuous deprivation of Palestinians of their natural resources, with water confiscation as one of its main elements.
Israel’s Water apartheid goes global
The international community and corporations take an active part in sustaining Israel’s violations of Palestinian water rights. Deals with Israeli water companies responsible for implementing and facilitating the occupation’s apartheid and settler colonial practices violate the state obligations not to aid or assist Israel’s violations of international law and business responsibility to respect and ensure respect of human rights throughout its supply chain.