Water Fight In The Mideast
It's laundry day, and Fatma Zetad drags buckets of water from a well to wash clothing for her seven children.
Her tap has been dry for a month, the result of a regional water shortage caused by drought, rapid population growth and reckless overuse. Palestinians have felt the crisis more acutely than their neighbors - Israel allots them less than one-third the amount of water pumped to Israeli households.
Water knows no political boundaries, but allocating it is one of the difficult issues negotiators are trying to resolve in a final Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty that will divide the land but mandate sharing the water.
Israel contends that in accordance with existing agreements already made with the Palestinians, water is already being more fairly distributed.
Palestinians say the amount of water they receive isn't nearly enough.
For Palestinians, control over water sources in the West Bank, where they plan to establish a state, would alleviate shortages in hard-hit places like Yatta.
CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey reports the controversy over access to more water is one of the obstacles towards achieving real peace on the West Bank.
Residents of the southern West Bank town of 45,000 are piped water once a month for a day or two on a rotating basis. The rest of the time, they fill up from commercial tanks at $4 per 35 cubic feet or draw water from local wells - sweaty, time-consuming work done mostly by women.
Children are washed infrequently in basins.
"Israel doesn't run water from the main pipes, and we don't have enough money to buy water," Zetad, 36, said Wednesday, pointing to her dry tap. She counts herself lucky - she has access to a nearby well that has not gone dry, and she can meet her family's basic needs by lugging home a five-gallon bucket a dozen times a day.
Yatta Mayor Khalil Younis said town residents use just 4.5 gallons of water per person per day - less than one-fifth the minimum water allowance recommended by the World Health Organization. The average Israeli uses about 75 gallons of water a day for all household purposes.
The Israeli human rights group Betselem says the average Palestinian consumes one-fifth the water used by his Israeli counterpart, though Israel puts the ratio at 1:3.
The situation is similarly harsh in the Gaza Strip, where overflowing septic systems pollute the aquifer and overpumping allows sea water to seep in. Israel controls 80 percent of West Bank and Gaza aquifers.
Betselem activists brought bottled water and water tanks to Yatta on Wednesday to protest the water shortages, accusing Israel of depriving Palestinians of basic human rights.
But Israeli water officials say they are providing the Palestinians with the amount of water agreed upon in interim peace accords. They explained the discrepancy in distribution between Palestinians and Israelis as a function of differences in lifestyle.
"As the standard of living rises, there ae washing machines, dishwashers - people need more water," said Noga Blitz, the Israeli Infrastructure Ministry's director of water consumption management. She blamed the Palestinian Authority for not setting up pipes to receive an additional 175 million cubic feet of water that Israel had promised to give Gaza annually.
In the West Bank, Blitz said, the poor quality of the pipes leads to loss of half the water pumped for household use.
The problem is not simply one of allocation. Overpumping has deteriorated water quality throughout the region, and population growth and a rising standard of living for both sides have increased demand.
Israel has cut water to farmers by 40 percent and is considering an emergency purchase of water from Turkey. Both sides are developing desalination projects.
Palestinians particularly resent Jewish settlers in the West Bank who are allotted three to five times more water than Palestinians receive.
"There will be very big conflicts in this area if the water issue is not solved," warned Said Galala, the director general of the Palestinian Environment Ministry.
In Yatta on Wednesday, children crowded around a truck in the hot sun as Betselem activists handed out bottles of water.
"Water! Water!" they shouted, reaching out their hands.
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