Who Says Israel Is Stealing Gaza's Water?

Amnesty International is making claims that Israel is leaving Gaza with only a trickle of water. In my efforts to report on positive projects from the Middle East, I recently covered this story -- one where the Mayor of Gaza is co-operating with one from a nearby Israeli city, so Gaza City can build its own water treatment facility. An international meeting in Brazil in July was lined up so the two could meet, but sadly Hamas (reported from my Israeli contacts) would not let the Mayor of Gaza out of the Strip.

Is all fair in love and war? From what I've learned, Israel has been more than fair trying to help the development of Gaza speed up. They recognize that the environment knows no borders, and wish very much for some peace and quiet over here.

North of Gaza over here in Jaffa, I meet people who are trying to create a just future for all. Read this story about two mayors, one from Ashkelon, Israel and one from Gaza who are doing their best to create a water bridge between their two cities. It might make you think twice about pointing your finger of blame:

Israelis And Gazan Smoke A Peace Pipe

The concept of achieving peace through pipes may have originated with Native Americans, but today, unbeknownst to most of us, Israelis and Gazans are seeking peace through sewage pipes.

It was a wild idea back in 1997, and perhaps it is even more unrealistic today. However, against the odds - and working around their governments - the mayors of the Israeli city of Ashkelon and the Palestinian Authority's Gaza City have taken it upon themselves to try to cooperate with each other.

Ten years ago the vehicle was an educational project in high-tech. Today, they're coming together over waste water, a major problem in Gaza City right now.

By car, the two cities are only about a 20-minute drive away from each other. But in fact, they are worlds apart. Most people in both cities have never met one another.

The only thing they can be sure that they have in common is a beautiful coastline that follows the Mediterranean Sea from Lebanon all the way down to Egypt. But that shining sea is heavily polluted, since Gaza has no water infrastructure and its raw sewage pours directly into the sea, as Green Prophet's Rami reports here from Gaza.

Thanks to one man's vision, the two cities will soon be working together. Ilan Juran, an American-Israeli specialist in urban infrastructure, is seeing to it that the residents of Gaza will be equipped with the same sanitation and sewage systems that are enjoyed by their neighbors in their sister city on the coast.

Partners in the hoped-for project include the mayors of Ashkelon and Gaza, the Israeli water company Mekorot, the Palestinian Water Authority, the United Nations and local municipalities.

All that remains is for Hamas to approve the plan

Ashkelon Mayor Benny Vaknin is working in full cooperation with Gaza Mayor Maged Abu Ramadan to put Juran's vision to the test. Vaknin went to Brazil to present the idea to the XVII International Media Seminar on Peace in the Middle East, a conference on Middle East peacemaking co-hosted by the United Nations' Department of Public Information and the Brazilian government at the end of July.

The plan being presented in Brazil is to build a new recycling and water management system for Gaza City and its surrounding villages based on the existing Israeli system.

It was hoped that officials from both sides would sign the agreement in Rio de Janeiro, but despite permits to travel being arranged by the Israeli side, two days before the conference, Abu Ramadan and his officials were refused permission to travel by Hamas.

Palestinians from the West Bank and East Jerusalem did attend the event, however, and they signed their names on the water works plan, without the consent of Hamas officials.

Expected to cost more than $50 million, which Vaknin believes can be raised through donations; the plant will be modelled on the eight-year old water treatment facility in Ashkelon. Gaza will receive the blueprints and Israeli specialists.

The last hurdle, according to Galit Amzallag, director of international relations for the city of Ashkelon, will be to convince the Hamas government in Gaza to agree.

Polluted water in Gaza is making kids sick

"We will raise the money and Benny [Vaknin] will give the plans of our water system, and our specialists will assist them. The only problem is when will Hamas step aside . . . They are sabotaging it. It's frustrating because we worked so hard," Amzallag sighs.

Since the most recent wave of conflict this past December, the people of Gaza have been bemoaning their city's lack of sewage treatment plants.

Not only is the sewage polluting one of their few sources of recreation - the beach - but according to Green Prophet's journalist Rami Almeghari who reports from Gaza, small lakes of sewage are building up and creating polluted lagoons that threaten peoples' health. Kids are getting sick.

Ashkelon, a port city, that receives a sewage stream from Gaza, obviously has more than one interest in the Gaza facility, which would treat and divert the wastewater to be used for agriculture in Gaza.

But that shouldn't detract from Ashkelon's determination to go full steam ahead with the project, which in addition to clean water would also achieve improved quality of life for Gazans.

So far their Gaza counterparts have been very cooperative. When the new mayor of Gaza assumed office he readily understood the value of partnering with the Israeli side, says Amzallag, who has worked closely with Mayor Vaknin for over a decade.

Past success grants hope

Amzallag has been to Gaza City about 10 times, she says. The first time was for the joint Israel-Gaza high-tech training distance learning project.

That project rested on the cooperation between the late Mayor of Gaza City Awn al-Shawa and Mayor Vaknin. In the framework of that program teenage kids from both societies were taught computer and high-tech skills, which they in turn passed on to their younger peers. It worked well until the intifada hit.

Despite the uprising, Vaknin urged the Gaza mayor to join him on a fundraising mission to the World Bank and the United Nations in New York. A million dollars was raised and a study site complete with facilities was built in Germany. There was even enough money to pay for air fare for the participants.

With the means and neutral territory secured the project was saved and youths from Israel and Gaza learned high-tech together at month-long sessions in Germany.

Beyond water, there are other dreams for cooperation between the two cities. One is to build a railway between Egypt and Ashkelon with stops in Gaza. A second dream is to build a recycling center on the border between the two regions. If all flows well with the water project, perhaps shared railways and recycling will be a reality too.

More on water in Gaza:
The Liquid Possibilities for Peace Between Gaza and Israel
A Report from the Strip on Gaza Sewage Water Crisis: Green Prophet's Rami Reports from Gaza
How Cast Lead Conflict Affected Environment in Gaza

(This story was first published on ISRAEL21c - www.israel21c.org. Karin Kloosterman is an associate editor of ISRAEL21c, and founder of Green Prophet (www.greenprophet.comwww.greenprophet.com), an environment news site focused on the Middle East. Twitter @greenprophet.com)

 

Follow Karin Kloosterman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kloostermania

Comments

[StCuthbert]

Great article. Unlike the Amnesty report, it shows the side of Israel I believe is the true one, the side that helps the Palestinians and wants to live in peace with them. Too bad Hamas isn't on board with this idea...

[erinaceus]

I very much enjoyed reading this article. There is so much negative news coming from the Middle East that such stories of positive developments need more coverage.

However, the author never answered the question she asked in her own headline, and it seemed strange to me that she talks only about wastewater treatment when the headline implies problems with freshwater provision. If you shut down the water main to my neighborhood, I'm going to have a water shortage, and it doesn't matter how nice you are about helping redesign the neighborhood sewer system.

I am grateful for all who would contribute to peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and to this author in particular for covering a pro-peace effort. But I would like to hear more about the lede that has been buried so deeply in this story. In her very first sentence, she states that Amnesty International claims that water to Gaza has been severely restricted. The rest of the article does nothing to refute that claim. Is it true? Has Israel reduced the amount of water available to Gaza? Are different departments in the Israeli government acting at cross purposes (sewer authority, helpful; water authority, hurtful)?

[lbsaltzman]

I believe that she sides steps the central question because there is too much evidence that Israel is indeed stealing water from the Palestinians. The evidence comes from mulitple sources including israeli groups that are monitoring the situtation. The World Bank, hardly a radical group, has placed some blame on the Palestinian infrastructure, but the lion's share of the blame on Israeli authorities for the lack of fresh water available to the Palestinians.

Palestinians get to watch Israeli's, who are living on land stolen from the Palestinians, watering lawns and jumpiing in swimming pools while Palestinians walk distances to carry water in buckets and jars.

[WBMD]

Israel is not receiving any water from the Gaza Aquifer, which is totally under Palestinian control. Why are the Palestinians refusing to recycle waste water, as the Israelis do, and setting up desalinization plants, as the Israelis are?

[WBMD]

I am amazed (or am I?) at the lack of input on this article. Even your comment is digging for the negative.

In reply, in 2005, as part of its disengagement from Gaza, Israel transferred all 25 existing wells, storage reservoirs, and a well developed transmission system to Palestinian control. Immediately following Israel's withdrawal, over 3000 unapproved wells were drilled, causing a severe drop in water levels, and seriously negatively affecting the quality and quantity of water available from the Gaza Aquifer. The Gaza Aquifer has no effect on Israel, and Israel does not control the water available from the Gaza Aquifer. Additional water for Gaza will have to come from recycling wastewater and desalinization of sea water, both steps that are available to the Gaza Palestinians, with funding available, but which they have refused to undertake for tactical reasons.

Finally, to ask Israel to provide Gaza with water from its own critically short supplies, all the while Gaza is committed to the extermination of Israel and its people, is ludicrous. One may well ask why Egypt is not supplying water to Gaza.

[erinaceus]

I'm a bit surprised by your criticism. I was not "digging for the negative". I asked, as neutrally as possible, about why the author asked a question and then wrote an article that ignored it. Knowing the issue would be divisive, my request for additional information, took no stand, and placed no blame, and was (I thought) rather laudatory.

The first sentence of your response is exactly the kind of divisive comment you claimed to decry in your first-in-line post. By that standard, you failed your own test.

However, the remainder of your response is exactly the kind of factual information I was looking for; for that, I thank you, and welcome any additional information.

[WBMD]

Here is a decidedly positive story on Gaza and Israel - a veritable blueprint for actual improvement for the lives of all people in that violence-torn area. The only aspect missing is any detraction from the benefits of co-existence, and vilification and delegitimization of Israel. Can the multitude of HP bloggers build positively on this initiative?