NOVANEWS
EIN AL HILWA, WEST BANK // These rocky foothills are a forbidding place even for the scattered Bedouin communities that have herded livestock here for generations. Yet it is not the summer heat that is threatening their way of life.
Last month, Israeli soldiers began confiscating water-storage containers used by Bedouin in several pastoral encampments on the northern fringes of the West Bank’s Jordan Valley area.
No explanation was given to the dozens of impoverished residents, who have since been rationing their already scarce water supplies and tending to thirsty livestock.
But no explanation was needed. Many here see the confiscations as the latest Israeli tactic to put pressure on Bedouin and Palestinian residents to leave this resource-rich area.
“Water is the source of life. Without it, how can we live here?” said Mohammed Aleyan, 34, a shepherd from Ein Al Hilwa encampment.
He said the soldiers came without notice and handcuffed him and his 15-year-old nephew before emptying water containers and leaving with the mobile tanks.
Because the encampments are denied access to Israeli utilities, the Bedouin have had to bring in water from distant springs by lorry.
Fatimah Ka’abne, a mother of seven aged in her 30s, said that some women pleaded with the soldiers to stop “but they threw us to the ground”. She said: “They laughed at us.”
The incidents highlight the broader struggle over the Jordan Valley and its fertile fields and substantial supplies of underground water.
The vast area, essential for a viable Palestinian state, forms more than a quarter of the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel was allowed to directly administer more than 60 per cent of the West Bank – including most of the Jordan Valley.
Little remit was granted to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and that may never be increased.
Few expect Israel to relinquish control any time soon, said Shlomo Brom, a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Israelis had begun to question the ability of Jordan – which maintains a peace treaty with Tel Aviv – to police its boundary with the Jordan Valley.
“The situation in Jordan is more chaotic than it used to be,” Mr Brom said.
Jordan – like Egypt, the other Arab country that has a peace treaty with Israel – has formed an integral pillar to Tel Aviv’s regional security.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, echoed this sentiment last year, reaffirming his position that Israel must retain a long-term military presence in the Jordan Valley in the event of a peace deal with the Palestinians because “Israel’s line of defence begins here”.
In the meantime, Israel has been expanding Jordan Valley settlements and extracting disproportional amounts of water from aquifers.
The area’s 37 settlements, home to about 9,500 residents, control an estimated 86 per cent of Jordan Valley land. Much of that is used for an extensive network of farms. So much, in fact, that Jordan Valley settlers use about a third of the annual amount of water available to all 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians, according to the Israeli-rights watchdog of the occupied Palestinian territories, B’Tselem.
Some Jordan Valley Bedouin survive on 20 litres a day, which B’Tselem describes on its website as barely meeting the World Health Organisation’s standard for “short-term survival”.
For Palestinians, the reason for such disparities is clear. Before the Israeli occupation began, between 200,000 and 320,000 Arabs, both Palestinian and Bedouin, lived in the Jordan Valley. Now, that number is about 56,000.
“They want to kick us out of the Jordan Valley and concentrate us in the cities,” said Ibrahim Sawaftah, a Palestinian activist in the area.
Many non-Jews have left the valley because of Israel’s policies of home demolitions and military exercises in the area
No explanation was given to the dozens of impoverished residents, who have since been rationing their already scarce water supplies and tending to thirsty livestock.
But no explanation was needed. Many here see the confiscations as the latest Israeli tactic to put pressure on Bedouin and Palestinian residents to leave this resource-rich area.
“Water is the source of life. Without it, how can we live here?” said Mohammed Aleyan, 34, a shepherd from Ein Al Hilwa encampment.
He said the soldiers came without notice and handcuffed him and his 15-year-old nephew before emptying water containers and leaving with the mobile tanks.
Because the encampments are denied access to Israeli utilities, the Bedouin have had to bring in water from distant springs by lorry.
Fatimah Ka’abne, a mother of seven aged in her 30s, said that some women pleaded with the soldiers to stop “but they threw us to the ground”. She said: “They laughed at us.”
The incidents highlight the broader struggle over the Jordan Valley and its fertile fields and substantial supplies of underground water.
The vast area, essential for a viable Palestinian state, forms more than a quarter of the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Israel was allowed to directly administer more than 60 per cent of the West Bank – including most of the Jordan Valley.
Little remit was granted to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and that may never be increased.
Few expect Israel to relinquish control any time soon, said Shlomo Brom, a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Israelis had begun to question the ability of Jordan – which maintains a peace treaty with Tel Aviv – to police its boundary with the Jordan Valley.
“The situation in Jordan is more chaotic than it used to be,” Mr Brom said.
Jordan – like Egypt, the other Arab country that has a peace treaty with Israel – has formed an integral pillar to Tel Aviv’s regional security.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, echoed this sentiment last year, reaffirming his position that Israel must retain a long-term military presence in the Jordan Valley in the event of a peace deal with the Palestinians because “Israel’s line of defence begins here”.
In the meantime, Israel has been expanding Jordan Valley settlements and extracting disproportional amounts of water from aquifers.
The area’s 37 settlements, home to about 9,500 residents, control an estimated 86 per cent of Jordan Valley land. Much of that is used for an extensive network of farms. So much, in fact, that Jordan Valley settlers use about a third of the annual amount of water available to all 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians, according to the Israeli-rights watchdog of the occupied Palestinian territories, B’Tselem.
Some Jordan Valley Bedouin survive on 20 litres a day, which B’Tselem describes on its website as barely meeting the World Health Organisation’s standard for “short-term survival”.
For Palestinians, the reason for such disparities is clear. Before the Israeli occupation began, between 200,000 and 320,000 Arabs, both Palestinian and Bedouin, lived in the Jordan Valley. Now, that number is about 56,000.
“They want to kick us out of the Jordan Valley and concentrate us in the cities,” said Ibrahim Sawaftah, a Palestinian activist in the area.
Many non-Jews have left the valley because of Israel’s policies of home demolitions and military exercises in the area
