Why, In 2009, Are Things Like This Allowed To Happen?

[callhimar]

Report: Palestinians denied water

[h1]Report: Palestinians denied water[/h1]
Israel is denying Palestinians access to even the basic minimum of clean, safe water, Amnesty International says.

In a report, the human rights group says Israeli water restrictions discriminate against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

It says that in Gaza, Israel's blockade has pushed the already ailing water and sewage system to "crisis point".

Israel says the report is flawed and the Palestinians get more water than was agreed under the 1990s peace deal.

'Basic need'

In the 112-page report, Amnesty says that on average Palestinian daily water consumption reaches 70 litres a day, compared with 300 litres for the Israelis.

It says that some Palestinians barely get 20 litres a day - the minimum recommended even in humanitarian emergencies.

While Israeli settlers in the West Bank enjoy lush gardens and swimming pools, Amnesty describes a series of Israeli measures it says are discriminating against Palestinians:

• Israel has "entirely appropriated the Palestinians' share of the Jordan river" and uses 80% of a key shared aquifer
• West Bank Palestinians are not allowed to drill wells without Israeli permits, which are "often impossible" to obtain
• Rainwater harvesting cisterns are "often destroyed by the Israeli army"
• Israeli soldiers confiscated a water tanker from villagers who were trying to remain in land Israel had declared a "closed military area"
• An unnamed Israeli soldier says rooftop Palestinian household water tanks are "good for target practice"
• Much of the land cut off by the West Bank barrier is land with good access to a major aquifer
• Israeli military operations have damaged Palestinian water infrastructure, including $6m worth during the Cast Lead operation in Gaza last winter
• The Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza has "exacerbated what was already a dire situation" by denying many building materials needed for water and sewage projects.

The report also noted that the Palestinian water authorities have been criticised for bad management, quoting one audit that described the sector as in "total chaos".

"Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality, subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford," Amnesty's Donatella Rovera said.

"Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians' access to water."

'Fair share'

Ms Rovera also urged Israel to "take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources".

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said "the idea that we're taking water away from someone else is simply preposterous".

He argued that Israeli fresh water use per capita had gone down since 1967 due to efficiency and new technologies, while the Palestinians' use had increased and more than a third of their water was wasted.

If there were allegations of military wrongdoing, those would be investigated, he said.

He also rejected the claim that Israel was preventing Palestinians from drilling for water, saying Israel had approved 82 such projects but the Palestinians had only implemented 26 of them.

"They have received billions of dollars in international aid over the last decade and a half, why have they not invested that in their own water infrastructure>?" he asked.

The report also criticised the Oslo Accords, which the Palestinians agreed to in 1993.

It said that under them, the Palestinians gained the responsibility for managing an "insufficient" water supply and maintaining "long neglected" water infrastructure.

Also, the deal left the Palestinians paying Israel for half of the domestic water used in the West Bank, despite the fact it is extracted from the shared aquifer.

Mr Regev said Israel provides the Palestinians with more water than it was required to under the accord.


It is absolutely disgusting that the justification is "we're giving them more water than what we were required to!"

How is it that they are REQUIRED to? If they weren't required to, would they just allow these innocent civilians to die of thirst? This is absolutelydeplorable.

 

[mangudai954]

Things are such a mess over there

 

[dopestop]

smh

 

[dukedude31]

I agree, it's execrable..
however I don't like to concern myself with foreign countries matters such as these. That's why I'm thankful to live here in the states.

 

[rl treyce]

Originally Posted by Dukedude31

I agree, it's execrable..
however I don't like to concern myself with foreign countries matters such as these. That's why I'm thankful to live here in the states.

are you kidding???

 

[big j 33]

That's pretty bad, but just imagine the horrible conditions going on in the world that the press isn't reporting on and that we're not hearingabout.

 

[Master Zik]

Cuz we don't learn from our past.

 

[seventh letter]

Originally Posted by Big J 33

That's pretty bad, but just imagine the horrible conditions going on in the world that the press isn't reporting on and that we're not hearing about.

Bingo.

 

[dirtylicious]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8327146.stm

[h1]Gaza thirsts as sewage crisis mounts[/h1]

Partially treated sewage seeps into the groundwater from the lagoons


[table][tr][td]
By Heather Sharp
BBC News, Gaza
[/td] [/tr][/table]

Gaza's aquifer and only natural freshwater source is "in danger of collapse," the UN is warning.

Engineers have long been battling to keep the densely populated strip's water and sewage system limping along.

But in September the UN Environment Programme warned that damage to the underground aquifer - due to the Israeli and Egyptian blockade, conflict, and years of overuse and underinvestment - could take centuries to reverse if it is not halted now.
[table][tr][td]

[/td] [td]

We could in a short time change people's lives if we were allowed to, but there is a key phrase - open borders

Monther Shoblak
[/td] [/tr][/table]
Monther Shoblak, director of Gaza's Coastal Municipality Water Utility, sniffs the air at the Beit Lahia water treatment plant and smiles.

"I'm happy when I smell sewage," he jokes, "it means the turbines are working."

Propellers are agitating the frothy sludge in one of the lagoons, aerating it to help bacteria digest it.

He says the machinery sometimes falls silent during the power cuts that plague most of Gaza.

But the mirror-smooth pond next to it is a perpetual concern.

The plant is handling twice its capacity and is only able to partially treat the sewage.

Lagoons designed to allow treated clean water to infiltrate through Gaza's sandy soil back down into the aquifer are instead funnelling sewage straight back into the groundwater

In addition, with several years of drought and the digging of hundreds of illegal, unregulated wells, the UN Environmental Programme says at least three times more water is extracted than is replenished each year.

Up to 80m litres of partially treated sewage are pumped into the sea each day


As the level is dropping in the aquifer, sea water is invading.

With nitrates from the sewage and salt from the sea, only 5-10% of the water in Gaza's wells - and therefore its taps - now meets World Health Organization guidelines, even after it has been chlorinated.

Years of decline

The aquifer has been in decline for years. But Oxfam's Mark Buttle, who co-ordinates international organisations working in the water sector, says the pressures are adding up.

Gaza faces a "pending environmental disaster" he warns.

"Water is life," he says. Action must be taken now, "so that we can prevent future problems with Gaza becoming uninhabitable".
[table][tr][td]

Khader Makdad and his wife find it difficult to pay for water
[/td] [/tr][/table]
Next to a school among a dense tangle of crumbling concrete homes, a water pump in Shati refugee camp hums as it sucks water from a borehole close to the sea.

Mr Buttle says it is some of Gaza's worst water.

"It's like sea water," says local resident Shadi Dosh, 27.

"It's not clean. It's only for washing. It has a bad smell," says Nabila Makdad, a mother of six.

Poverty has risen in Gaza as the blockade has ended much economic activity. An estimated 70% of the population lives on less than a dollar a day.

Mrs Makdad and her husband Khader say they make so little from their two street stalls that they have to rely on charity and loans from friends.

They spend 20NIS (about $5) a week buying water for cooking and drinking from private tankers, which bring water from small-scale desalination plants.

"I'd rather buy vegetables or fruit, or put the money towards my children's education, but there's no other way," says Ms Makdad.

Health concerns

Another concern is the blood disorder dubbed "blue baby syndrome", which is associated with nitrate pollution.

It results in low oxygen levels in an infant's blood, which can cause breathing trouble, diarrhoea and vomiting, and in extreme cases, loss of consciousness, convulsions and death.

Some building supplies have arrived, but water and sanitation workers say they need a lot more


The World Health Organization has not discovered any recent, full-blown cases in Gaza.

But in a 2002 study, nearly half the children surveyed had higher than safe levels of methemoglobin, the substance that indicates the condition. Nitrate pollution has increased since then.

Under Israel's crippling blockade, and with the border with Egypt closed, most building materials are refused entry, for fear they could be used to make smuggling tunnels or the rockets that militants fire at Israel.

But limited amounts of materials for sewage and water infrastructure have been allowed in.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev says he believes the system for approving shipments is currently "going quite well".

He says Israel "wants to work effectively with the international community" on the issue, which with 50-80m litres of partially treated sewage pumped into the sea each day, is also likely to have an impact on southern Israel's coast.

But Mr Shoblack says, since Israel's military operation in Gaza last winter, only five of 40 orders for building materials have arrived.

Nevertheless, he says, most of the $6m of damage sustained by the water and sewage system during the fighting has been repaired.
[table][tr][td]

The lagoon which burst, killing five people, has now been drained
[/td] [/tr][/table]
Thirty kilometres of pipes and 11 wells were damaged, and sewage flooded for up to a kilometre after one waste water plant was hit.

Even some control rooms at a brand new facility - locally referred to as the Tony Blair project as it has been heavily championed by the international Middle East envoy - were damaged.

But Mr Shoblack speaks proudly of his organisation's few achievements - for example, the draining of a lagoon in Beit Lahiya that burst in 2007, killing five people in a flood of sewage.

And he says donors have committed $250m to a master plan including a sea water desalination plant and new sewage treatment facilities - but only if the political and security situation improves.

In the meantime, he shows me a large pipe belching brownish-white sludge into a frothy patch on the beach south of Gaza City.

It pollutes the sea and wastes water that could, if treated, be used to recharge the aquifer.

"We have a vision. We could in a short time change people's lives, if we were allowed to," says Mr Shoblack. "But there is a key phrase - open borders."

 

[mac a roni]

[color= rgb(102, 0, 153)]This is why there's "terrorism" in the world[/color]

 

[callhimar]

Originally Posted by Dukedude31

I agree, it's execrable..
however I don't like to concern myself with foreign countries matters such as these. That's why I'm thankful to live here in the states.

Wow. Some Americans really do feel that they live in this perfect little bubble. Really sad.

[color= rgb(102, 0, 153)]This is why there's "terrorism" in the world[/color]

These actions are just a different type of terrorism.

 

[warmachine]

jewish people is grimey over there

 

[spsfinest212]

Originally Posted by WarMachine

jewish people is grimey over there

 

[jawn piece]

Originally Posted by WarMachine

jewish people is grimey over there

and so are the Palestinians..its our allegiance with Israel that keeps us from stopping this sort of thing and the reason we receive backlash forwat goes on.

 

[optimusprimeaphia]

Because it doesn't matter what year it is, the Human Race hasn't really progressed since the dawn of the modern man. The only thing that changed is howwe interact with each other...what we do and say haven't really changed.


A man in 1 AD is a man in 3000 AD

 

[chris boshs neck]

I hate how in the west they portray the Israelis as innocent people protecting there homeland while the Palestine are wild savages. Why we are pumping BILLIONSinto Israel is beyond me. This is coming from someone with jewish family as well.

 

[DVMNXK]

How can the Jews be so cruel towards these cats considering their history during WW2? I don't know the whole story, just that they appear to be theoppressor in this situation.

 

[theconditioner]

How is this allowed to happen?

Primarily because the United States continues to reject the peace process. Take a look at all of the UN resolutions relating to this issue - the US isconsistently vetoing and downplaying them ("them" as in the vast majority of resolutions calling for Israel to end it's occupation and stopviolating international law).

That is why it is up to citizens of the US to voice their opinion on this issue.

If Congress members feel pressure from their constituents to make a change, change may come. But then again, that seems unlikely, because a significantproportion of the US population believes it is our religious duty to protect Israel.

 

[corporatejp]

Originally Posted by Illuztrious

How can the Jews be so cruel towards these cats considering their history during WW2? I don't know the whole story, just that they appear to be the oppressor in this situation.

The script's been flipped.

It's so deep that nobody in this country will understand.

If Palestine would work a little harder at peace, it would be a moot point. Dudes are firing missles randomly over the demilitarized zone at civilian targets.

Nobody here is innocent, it is a two-sided coin.

Keep that in mind.

 

[inine5]

If Congress members feel pressure from their constituents to make a change, change may come. But then again, that seems unlikely, because a significant proportion of the US population believes it is our religious duty to protect Israel.
... and there's a significant part of everyone else that doesn't really know or care that this is going on. that's america for ya....

 

[theconditioner]

The script's been flipped.

It's so deep that nobody in this country will understand.

If Palestine would work a little harder at peace, it would be a moot point. Dudes are firing missles randomly over the demilitarized zone at civilian targets.

Nobody here is innocent, it is a two-sided coin.

Keep that in mind.

It's a two-sided coin, of course. But a VERY lopsided coin at that.

Keep in mind that Palestinians have, for a long time, made significant concessions to the Israelis, only to be rejected and further marginalized.

Keep in mind that during the fiasco last winter, the Israelis broke the cease-fire agreement, and the Palestiniansresponded with rocket attacks. Not the best way to respond, but then again, when NOBODY is listening to any of your peaceful solutions, what else is there todo? How would anyone react if their child was murdered in front of them?

The rocket attacks pale in comparison to the devastation Israel caused - phosphorous shelling, bombing shelters in which Israel KNEW that innocent civilianswere in, etc. There is absolutely no comparison between the damage Israel caused and what Hamas caused.

These people are hopeless, and their being crushed, mentally, economically and physically.

 

[theconditioner]

... and there's a significant part of everyone else that doesn't really know or care that this is going on. that's america for ya....
Exactly. They're not mutually exclusive. Many are probably both indoctrinated religiously and apathetic.