Palestinian Right to Water

http://www.cesr.org/PROGRAMS/waterpalestine.htm

While some have predicted that the next war in the Middle East will be over water, control over water resources has already been and continues to be a central point of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians since the establishment of Israel in 1948. Following the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel took total control of Palestinian water resources, as well as key portions of the headwaters of the Jordan River.

In spring 2003, CESR, in collaboration with local Palestinian NGOs, including the Palestinian Environmental NGO Network (PENGON) and the Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG), conducted a project to document violations of Palestinians' human right to water. From the construction of the wall of separation in the northern West Bank (separating whole towns and villages from their land and water), to the destruction of drinking water wells in Gaza, to Israel’s refusal to provide water services to unrecognized villages in the Negev, CESR found widespread and severe human rights violations. CESR presented this information in a report to the UN Committee on ESCR, which after reviewing the findings, urged Israel to “take immediate steps to ensure equitable access to and distribution of water to all populations living in the occupied territories, and in particular to ensure that all parties concerned participate fully and equally in the process of water management, extraction and distribution.”

A copy of CESR’s report Thirsting For Justice: Violations of the Human Right to Water in Palestine including the concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is now available.

PDF File: http://www.cesr.org/PROGRAMS/ThirstingforJustice.pdf