Will Israel soon annex parts of the West Bank outright as Prime Minister Netanyahu has promised? Whether or not it does so, its creeping annexation has produced conditions of Apartheid described in this 10-slide presentation, 'Israeli Annexation of the West Bank: A Brief Guide,' produced by the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace Boston. View the slides and take action!
Bi-Weekly Brief for July 28, 2020
At a time when the Corona virus crisis has crowded out other news, the Alliance is producing news briefs every two weeks to keep our members informed about the situation in occupied Palestine.
Covid-19 upsurge
As of July 27, Israel registered 62,626 cases, nearly 34,000 of them active, and 473 deaths. Israel now ranks 6th in the world for per capita cases. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem there are now at least 13,129 cases, with 77 reported deaths. 1n the Gaza Strip cases have risen to 75, with 1 death. The Palestinian epicenter is the Hebron district with at least 6,789 cases. On July 21, a day after destroying a Covid-19 testing site near Jenin, the Israeli army demolished a building being constructed in Hebron as a central testing site.
Annexation takes back seat to Netanyahu’s fight for survival
Around Israel there have been nearly daily protests, with thousands gathering outside Netanyahu’s official and private residences to demand his ouster for mishandling the economy and the Covid-19 crisis. According to the July 22 Times of Israel, Netanyahu is refusing to pass the budget in order to trigger a new election in November, a maneuver that could enable him to fend off a potential High Court ruling that he has to step down when his corruption trial begins in January.
Palestinians pay steep price for cutting security cooperation with Israel
The PA’s decision to put a halt to civil and security cooperation has resulted in 100,000 virus test kits intended for the PA being stuck in Ben Gurion airport, and severe cuts to the PA budget and civil servants’ salaries. Particularly hard hit are cancer patients in Gaza, who cannot get travel permits from Israel to access the only Palestinian radiation therapy unit, which is in East Jerusalem (Haaretz, July 25).
Repression, cultural erasure and creeping annexation
There have been more than 80 IDF raids on the West Bank and a military incursion into Gaza on July 23 to raze farmland. On July 20 soldiers seized a large ancient stone baptismal font from an archaeological site near Bethlehem and shot at youth who tried to stop them. On July 22 the army raided East Jerusalem’s Edward Said National Conservatory of Music and the Yabous Cultural Center, confiscated files and computers, detained their directors and ransacked the home of the director of the Jerusalem Art Network. Near Ramallah on July 27 a mosque was daubed with Hebrew graffiti saying ‘the land of Israel is for the people of Israel’ and then set on fire, presumably by settler extremists. Israel’s de facto annexation was underscored by more home demolitions, the uprooting of olive trees, and construction of a new outpost on land near Nablus that the Trump plan would transfer to Israel.
See: Palestine Centre for Human Rights and The Palestine Chronicle
Our new banner. By Paul Normandia of Red Sun Press.
7/29, Webinar. Denying Life: The Annexation of Palestinian Water
Institute for Palestinian Studies presents…Denying Life: The Annexation of Palestinian Water
Access to water is crucial for agriculture and sanitation. Without it, a community can quickly be destroyed. Water is life.
As the occupying force, Israel controls water resources, denying them to Palestinians. The annexation of water threatens Palestinian health, culture and survival.
The Institute for Palestine Studies and the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) invite you to attend a webinar on this subject. Our panel of speakers will discuss the implications of what the loss of water means for Palestine.
The event will be live-streamed to IPS' Facebook page on July 29th at 11:00 am EST (U.S. and Canada)
Go here for more.
The panel:
Dr. Stephen P. Gasteyer is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. His research focuses on community development, environmental justice, and the political ecology of landscape change. Recent research has addressed community approaches to food, water and sanitation access and water quality protection; settler colonialism, land grabs, technology, and modes of resistance; and environmental equity, service delivery, and the response to COVID-19.
-Dr. Abdelrahman Al Tamimi is an assistant professor Strategic Planning and Future Studies at the Arab American University and a part-time lecturer at the Institute of Sustainable Development at Al Quds University. He has extensive experience in the field of water resource management, water governance, water policy, institutional building and reform, and water resource planning. He is the author of the book “Water Privatization and Regional Political Agenda”, and co-author of the report “Mediterranean challenges 2030.”
Dr. Muna Dajani (moderator) holds a PhD in Geography and Environment from the London School of Economics. Her research examines water struggles in agricultural communities and the linkages with politics of belonging and recognition. She has contributed to numerous studies on the hydropolitics of the Jordan and Yarmouk River Basins. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Lancaster Environment Centre.
Water as a Weapon against Palestinians
Even before Covid-19 and its ongoing and devastating toll, the everyday health conditions in the Gaza Strip were [undermined] by Israel.
Israel’s assaults and bombardments of the Gaza Strip’s wells and water infrastructure have forced 97% of its two million residents (991,400 are children) to live without clean drinking water. More than 98% of the water is unfit for drinking. (The high levels of contamination in the water sources also affect products and food produced with that water.)
The deterioration of the sanitation system, the prevalence of contaminated water and sewage, and the lack of clean drinking water has led to
• a 41.5% rate of life-threatening diarrhea among young children
• undernutrition, which contributes to diseases and impedes growth (causing 7.1% of children to be stunted in height)
• anemia in 59.7% of schoolchildren
• spikes in salmonella and typhoid fever caused by fecal contamination (every day, 43 Olympic swimming pools worth of raw and poorly treated sewage spill into the Mediterranean off the coast of Gaza)
• sharp rises in gastroenteritis, kidney disease, anemia, pediatric cancer, marasmus (a disease of severe malnutrition), and "blue baby” syndrome
• dehydration and fever
Families in the Gaza Strip are forced to buy expensive drinking water, with little or no quality control, from private vendors. 53% of the population lives below the poverty line. Approximately 34% (656,000 people) lives on less than $3.60 per day. The shortage of potable water and inability to buy bottled water causes repeated urinary tract infections and dehydration.
Israel’s blockade of Gaza bans entry of more than 70% of the materials necessary for water and wastewater projects, calling them “dual-use items,” considered to have military and civilian applications. ("Dual-use items" include cement, wood, solar panels, construction materials, water pumps, spare parts, generators, clothing, blankets, mattresses, mobile pumps to dewater flooded areas, water-testing and disinfection material, essential electromechanical equipment.)
The devastating water crisis has forced hospitals to reduce the cleaning and sterilizing of medical facilities.
For sources, see various facts on Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine fact sheet.
