Incredible Story about impact of a 12 Minute Video

This short film stimulates—and enriches—organizing around water justice in Palestine.

In early 2011, Mohammad Al-Azza, director of the Lajee Center Media Unit, was asked to make a video about Aida that would represent his community to the world, potentially in film festivals. Aida Refugee Camp, established in 1951, is home to about 6,000 Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It is surrounded on two sides by the separation wall, and an Israeli military base looms over it. Unemployment levels are high. Yet, for this particular video, Al-Azza decided to focus on something less obvious: the water crisis that hits Aida every summer. 

How community-based media sparked international activism for Palestinian water rights

Watch the video here.

'Water protectors' connect the issues in Standing Rock

Nadya Raja Tannous, a members of the Palestinian Youth Movement—United Sates, writes of the parallels between the situation of Native people and Palestinians—and more.

Why did I go in the first place? Because somewhere in the awkward power dynamic of being a US citizen, a non-native inhabitant of Turtle Island, and a Palestinian in the Diaspora, I saw the struggle for livelihood and culture, the struggle against settler-colonialism, the struggle to protect the sacred and maintain your own legitimacy, and the ever ominous force of erasure and historical amnesia. What I later saw at Standing Rock both embodied this and became bigger than it; as a Mohawk Elder said to me, “Without water, we [humans] are infertile dust”.

Palestinians join Standing Rock Sioux to protest Dakota Access Pipeline

Photo: Haltom El-Zabri with creative help from Palestinian Youth Movement-USA. 

Palestinians in the West Bank continue to be desperate for adequate water

Israel cuts water every summer but this year’s cutback was unprecedented. Yet nearby Israeli settlements have swimming pools and beautiful gardens.

Ramallah, occupied West Bank - Enas Taha, a resident of the Palestinian village of Kafr al-Deek in the occupied West Bank, has become desperate.

"Since the [water] crisis started in June, the municipality has been able to supply water for only one hour twice a week," Taha told Al Jazeera. "I am checking the weather forecast every day; they announced rain three weeks ago, but it has not come yet. The only thing I can do is to pray to God."

Palestinian villages 'get two hours of water a week'

Taha shows her empty beehives: 'Last year, we had bees so we could produce our own honey, but all the bees died due to lack of water; there are not enough flowers' [Eloise Bollack/Al Jazeera] 

A Rare Look Inside

This video is about life in Balata and Aida Camps and includes a section about water in Aida Camp.

In her first on-the-ground report from Palestine, Abby Martin gives a first-hand look into two of the most attacked refugee camps in the West Bank: Balata and Aida camps.

The Empire Files: Inside Palestine's Refugee Camps

please view the video here