Effect of the Wall on Water

The second day after occupying the West Bank in 1967, the Israeli military issued military order No. 92, which would prohibit all water development, drilling, and infrastructure building in the West Bank, unless a permit was obtained from the military “water officer”; to date, not a single permit has been issued, for agriculture or domestic use, in any of the areas which benefit from the Western Aquifer, demonstrating Israel’s iron grip over Palestinian water resources.

Groundwater is the main source of all water-related usage in the West Bank and in historic Palestine and is divided into three basins in accordance with the groundwater flow direction: northern, eastern and western. Rain is considered to be the main source of replenishment for the aquifer during winter. Total renewable fresh water available annually within the countries of the lower Jordan River Basin (namely Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza, and Israel) is estimated at nearly 2.8 billion cubic meters. Most of the water supply for Palestinian use in the West Bank is secured from the groundwater resources of wells, at 80 million MCM/ year, and springs, at 50 MCM/year.

To highlight the issue of water control, access and distribution, while the Occupied Territories have the highest groundwater occurrence or potential access to the groundwater (Figure 1) , they are using the least quantities within the region. While Israel uses 57.1% of the total available resources, the actual availability of water to Palestinians is only 8.2%. In the mean time the average per capita total water use in Israel is nearly 344 m³/year, it is some 93 m³/year in Palestine. The domestic per capita water use, however, is estimated at 98 m³/year in Israel, 56 m³/ year in Jordan and nearly 34 m³/ year in the urban areas in Palestine (Figure 2). Yet, in some rural areas of Palestine, it might not exceed 10 m³/ year. On a daily basis, this equates to each Israeli using an average of 270 liters per day, Jordanian 153 l/day, and Palestinians 93 l/day; however the actual Palestinian average daily use in urban areas is 50 l/day, half of what the World Health Organization deems necessary to meet basic needs. The variation in the per capita water use in the case of Palestine doesn’t reflect the actual demand. It merely reflects what water is being made available for use, reflecting a Figure 3 uppressed demand.

When Palestinian water use is compared with that of the Israeli colonies (settlements) in the West Bank, the gap is even greater. Figure 3 highlights this. Each settler uses five times more water than any Palestinian in the West Bank.

The most important wells that supply good water quantity and quality for Palestinian use are  those located in the Western Groundwater Basin. The importance of those wells also comes from the fact that they represent the only Palestinian access to the western groundwater basin. Total Palestinian water abstraction of nearly 20.4 million MCM from the western groundwater basin is secured from 142 wells (67 in Tulkarm and 75 in Qalqiliya). This represents nearly 30% of total Palestinian abstraction of 60.4 MCM from the three basins in the West Bank.