Water (and lack thereof)

Since Monday of last week, the ISM apartment has not had water. For about two days, people were able to get water from the tanker on top of our roof, but then that also ran out. This also happened to everyone else in our neighbourhood.

What is an inconvenience for us is a real problem for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank, and in particular for the tens of thousands who live in Area C, which is under complete Israeli military control. Water in the West Bank is often diverted to settlements, and the Palestinians have a lesser share.

The last and only time I had ever been to an Israeli settlement was when I was a delegate with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). One of the things I noticed when we drove in there, was the abundance of greenery. There were not only beautiful trees and bushes, but also nicely watered lawns. We came into the home of a settler family who hosted us, and were treated to some chilled water out of the fridge, with ice cubes for those who wanted to have it cooler.

http://livingstones-tomasz.blogspot.com/2010/08/welcome-to-neverland.html

Meanwhile, Palestinians have to ration their water. The water tankers you see on the top of homes have to last a family for two weeks. If the water runs out or there is a shortage, things start to get bad. Imagine no water for drinking. None for washing dishes. Or clothes. If you have small children and need to wash their diapers, you are out of luck. Showering, washing, brushing teeth... forget about it.

Sometimes water runs out because there just isn't enough for both Palestinians and the Israeli settlers and their lawns and swimming pools. At other times, the settlers sabotage Palestinian water tankers. The Shamsiya family has had theirs poisoned, fortunately they noticed,

In the apartment, we buy bottles of  drinking water from the store, and a Palestinian man who lives in another neighbourhood has kindly offered to allow us to get water for washing/cooking from his house. The mosque also is offering free water, which is nice.

We have not had water for seven days, and our landlord will hopefully be able to get the situation fixed in about nine days. A Palestinian family close to us have already been out of water for one month. Others, like us, haven't had any for about a week.



All of us hope, and those of us who believe in God, pray, that we have water again soon. InshAllah (God-willing) one day there will be a just peace and no one in the Holy Land will be going without it.

Palestinian houses in Tel Rumeida. Notice the water tankers on each home's roof. 

A large load of water bottles. We use them and buckets to collect water whenever is possible.

Washing is impossible at the moment so we wash our hands using hand sanitizer.

In case anyone reading this feels sorry for us, please don't. We are all internationals, and unlike many people living here, we not only have enough money to buy water when we need it, but we can also fly away and return to our North American and European countries if things get unbearable. No one is suffering from dehydration, not even Buster.

Most of our Palestinian neighbours do not have such a luxury. This is where they live, and the unequal and discriminatory distribution of water is one of many problems they face under the occupation.

To read about the problems that Palestinians living in this area due to water shortages and other aspects of living under military rule, I would recommend seeing the report below. It is from an Israeli human rights group called B'Tselem, which focuses on human rights abuses in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

http://www.btselem.org/topic/water

UPDATE: Later this afternoon, our apartment received water again.