Water as a Weapon against Palestinians

Israel has been escalating its tactic of removing Palestinians from their land using the deprivation of water as a weapon. Here are three examples, among hundreds, that occurred this week in the occupied West Bank:

• Israeli soldiers invaded the Palestinian village of Farasin (population 200) and handed out 36 immediate demolition orders for all structures and water wells. The village has a 200-year old well and several ancient buildings. 

• Israeli colonists invaded Khirbat Samra Bedouin community and stole three water tanks each with the capacity of 1.5 cubic meters. They also stole sheds, four tents, kitchenware, and five tons of wheat and animal feed, then fled the area. 

• Israeli bulldozers destroyed Palestinian-owned farmlands in Bruqin to extend sewage lines for an illegal Israeli settlement. 

Since the beginning of this year, Israeli soldiers injured 1070 Palestinians, mainly during nonviolent protests against the illegal annexation of their lands, home demolitions, and the isolation of entire villages and towns. Israeli soldiers killed 27 Palestinians, including seven children. (Seventeen were killed in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and ten in the Gaza Strip.)

In those same six months, Israel abducted about 2330 Palestinians in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and in the Gaza Strip. Among those abducted are 304 children.

Sources: imemc, imemc, imemc

Design by Paul Normandia of Red Sun Press.

Because they can...

“This is what they have been doing for a month, a group of settlers, several times a week. Yesterday (July 26) they came again,” Alyan says. “I have a cistern from which I drink. The settler routinely undresses and climbs into the cistern in order to swim in it.

“If I gave you a glass of water, and put a finger in it before, would you drink it?” Alyan asks. “My guess is no. So now imagine what I feel. It’s repulsive. It drives me crazy. I’m helpless.”

Read more here about the settler take over of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Battir near Bethlehem.

‘I Want Battir to Go to Hell’: Israeli Settlers Invade Palestinian World Heritage Site

Sixty-year-old Mariam Bader waters her crop on the ancient terraces of the Palestinian West Bank village of Battir, a UNESCO World Heritage Site., Hadas Parush/Flash90

Israeli Annexation of the West Bank: A brief guide

Will Israel soon annex parts of the West Bank outright as Prime Minister Netanyahu has promised?  Whether or not it does so, its creeping annexation has produced conditions of Apartheid described in this 10-slide presentation, 'Israeli Annexation of the West Bank: A Brief Guide,' produced by the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace Boston.  View the slides and take action! 

Israeli Annexation of the West Bank: A brief guide

Bi-Weekly Brief for July 28, 2020

At a time when the Corona virus crisis has crowded out other news, the Alliance is producing news briefs every two weeks to keep our members informed about the situation in occupied Palestine.

Covid-19 upsurge

As of July 27, Israel registered 62,626 cases, nearly 34,000 of them active, and 473 deaths.  Israel now ranks 6th in the world for per capita cases.  In the West Bank and East Jerusalem there are now at least 13,129 cases, with 77 reported deaths. 1n the Gaza Strip cases have risen to 75, with 1 death.  The Palestinian epicenter is the Hebron district with at least 6,789 cases.  On July 21, a day after destroying a Covid-19 testing site near Jenin, the Israeli army demolished a building being constructed in Hebron as a central testing site. 

Annexation takes back seat to Netanyahu’s fight for survival

Around Israel there have been nearly daily protests, with thousands gathering outside Netanyahu’s official and private residences to demand his ouster for mishandling the economy and the Covid-19 crisis.  According to the July 22 Times of Israel, Netanyahu is refusing to pass the budget in order to trigger a new election in November, a maneuver that could enable him to fend off a potential High Court ruling that he has to step down when his corruption trial begins in January.

Palestinians pay steep price for cutting security cooperation with Israel

The PA’s decision to put a halt to civil and security cooperation has resulted in 100,000 virus test kits intended for the PA being stuck in Ben Gurion airport, and severe cuts to the PA budget and civil servants’ salaries. Particularly hard hit are cancer patients in Gaza, who cannot get travel permits from Israel to access the only Palestinian radiation therapy unit, which is in East Jerusalem (Haaretz, July 25).  

Repression, cultural erasure and creeping annexation

There have been more than 80 IDF raids on the West Bank and a military incursion into Gaza on July 23 to raze farmland.  On July 20 soldiers seized a large ancient stone baptismal font from an archaeological site near Bethlehem and shot at youth who tried to stop them. On July 22 the army raided East Jerusalem’s Edward Said National Conservatory of Music and the Yabous Cultural Center, confiscated files and computers, detained their directors and ransacked the home of the director of the Jerusalem Art Network.  Near Ramallah on July 27 a mosque was daubed with Hebrew graffiti saying ‘the land of Israel is for the people of Israel’ and then set on fire, presumably by settler extremists.  Israel’s de facto annexation was underscored by more home demolitions, the uprooting of olive trees, and construction of a new outpost on land near Nablus that the Trump plan would transfer to Israel.

See: Palestine Centre for Human Rights and The Palestine Chronicle

Our new banner. By Paul Normandia of Red Sun Press.