With the beginning of Ramadan, the State owned Israeli water company Mekorot cut off water supply in the northern West Bank. The most affected areas are currently the Nablus and Jenin governorates. In the meantime, Mekorot guarantees the full supply of water to the settlements located in the same area. Since decades, Mekorot has been enforcing a water apartheid system upon the Palestinian people, reselling Palestinian communities water it has stolen from them, and is a crucial actor in Israeli colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land. The problem in Palestine is not the lack of water, it is the lack of justice.
Read the facts here and sign the petition to hold Mekorot accountable.
For this reason, campaigns all over the globe are targeting international cooperation with Mekorot and to dismantle Israeli propaganda to sell their ‘water apartheid’ as environmentally sustainable technology and methodology. Strengthening the campaign to StopMekorot is today more urgent than ever. For more see: www.stopmekorot.org.
As one concrete way to take action now, support the effort to end the cooperation agreement between Mekorot and Arup, a global design and project development firm that claims to use its work to ‘make a positive difference in the world’. What Palestinians see today is that Arup is lining up with Israel’s water apartheid.
Sign here now and share the petition. Tell Arup to stop this cooperation now!
Key information on the current situation in Palestine
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Mekorot has monopoly control over all water resources in the territories that Israel occupies and controls.
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With the start of Ramadan on 6th of June, Palestinians in up to thirty villages in Jenin and in the villages close to Nablus found themselves in shortage of water.
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Some villages are already since almost forty days without water.
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People are being forced to go and buy water at exorbitant prices from water trucks as Israel denies Palestinians access to most of the existing water wells and prohibits the construction of new ones.
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Buying from water trucks increases the cost of water by about 250 NIS per family; an expenditure that a lot of families cannot afford.
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Cutting off water in the month of Ramadan makes the traditional family gatherings and rituals almost impossible.
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Mekorot has cut water supply in a moment of extreme heat, with temperatures in the Jordan Valley reaching over 50 degrees.
Mekorot enacts similar measures unfortunately almost every year as they are part of Israel’s water apartheid.
Mekorot’s water apartheid
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Mekorot deprives Palestinians of access to their own water to the benefit of illegal settlers and Israeli communities. Palestinian consumption in the OPT is about 7 litres a day per person – well below the 10 litres per capita daily recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) – whereas Israeli daily per capita consumption, at about 30 litres.
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Mekorot supplies the illegal Israeli settlements and participates in the international crime of pillage of natural resources in occupied territory and in wanton destruction of water infrastructure. The United Nations report of the independent international fact-finding mission on the implications of the Israeli settlements on the rights of the Palestinian people as well as the latest report on the settlements by the Secretary-General of the UN denounce Mekorot’s role in the settlement enterprise.
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Mekorot has refused to supply water to Palestinian communities inside Israel, despite an Israeli high court ruling recognising their right to water.
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Mekorot denies Palestinians the human right to water as a tool for the Israeli policy of displacement. Farming and herding communities deprived of water for their personal consumption, their cultivations and livestock are pushed to abandoned their homes.
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Mekorot has been responsible for water rights violations and discrimination since the 1950s when it built Israel’s national water carrier, which diverts the waters of the Jordan River from the West Bank and Jordan to serve Israeli communities and has transformed the Jordan River into a sewage pit.
For more information about Mekorot’s water apartheid see: https://stopmekorot.org/6-reasons-to-boycott-mekorot/
Mekorot thrives on water privatization trends across the globe and offers its technology wherever the right to water becomes a commodity for those that have the money to pay.
Four actions you can take to support the Stop Mekorot campaign
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SIGN the petition ARUP: CUT YOUR PARTNERSHIP WITH HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS!
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CONDUCT research on Mekorot and whether they are active in your country. ORGANIZE campaigns against Mekorot and raise public awareness about Mekorot’s involvement in water apartheid against Palestinians. For information on some of Mekorot’s global contracts and interests, see: https://stopthewall.org/sites/default/files/Mekorot%20Factsheet%20Final.pdf
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DONATE your Facebook status to a fact about Mekorot. Pick one among “six reasons to boycott Mekorot” daily during the week of action: https://stopmekorot.org/6-reasons-to-boycott-mekorot/
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ORGANIZE a movie screening and talk to raise awareness about the violation of Palestinian water rights and Mekorot’s role in it. See a selection of videos on the campaign’s website: https://stopmekorot.org/Resources