Ramallah: Israel controls 82 per cent of water resources in the Palestinian Territories and the available water left for Palestinians does not meet their daily household and agricultural needs, according to a senior Palestinian official.

Walid Assaf, the Palestinian Agricultural Minister, maintains that the Palestinian Territories urgently need water and that water is available in Palestine but the Israeli occupation prevents Palestinians from using it. “Israel fully controls water resources in Palestine and does not give Palestinians the opportunity to address their water needs,” he told Gulf News.

Israel bans Palestinians from digging water wells, a process which needs several complicated Israeli permits and procedures.

Speaking to Gulf News, Palestinian water officials said the Israelis do not even agree to sit with their Palestinian counterparts to discuss the issue of water shortages in the Palestinian Territories and always tell representatives that the water available in the Palestinian Territories meets the daily needs of Palestinians.

Under the Oslo Accords, a joint Israeli-Palestinian committee had been set up to discuss the Palestinian water requirements. Palestinian officials claim that since the year 2000 this committee has not convened even once to address the water shortage in the Palestinian Territories. The official said they had repeatedly sought meetings with the Israelis to discuss the issue but the Israelis have been refusing, delaying and coming up with unacceptable reasons to avoid the meetings.

The Palestinian water officials stressed that the situation has become worse with the creation of the Israeli segregation barrier which annexed scores of water wells that had been given to the Palestinians after the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian officials argued that the path of the barrier had been modified several times to gain control of as many water wells as possible, and that at least 100 wells have ended up behind the Israeli segregation barrier.

Palestinian farmers were left with no choice but to dig new water wells on their own and without even referring to the Israelis, but Israeli forces raided the concerned areas and destroyed the newly dug water wells.

Assaf said the Palestinian National Authority had been setting up recycling plants to use drainage water. Several plants have been set up in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “It is time however to pay bigger and real attention to the agricultural sector to achieve development,” he said.

Ayman Al Rabi, the Chairman of Board of the Palestinian Environmental Organisations, said it was time for the PNA to suspend the already expired water agreement with the Israeli occupation. “The PNA should take advantage of its upgraded UN status to press Israel to sign new fairer water agreements which enable the Palestinians to possess water resources,” he said.

He stressed that water transitional agreements with the Israelis have already expired and should no longer be in place.

Palestinian water officials have also seriously warned that the PNA could lose a huge amount of foreign aid, mainly provided by the EU, as Israel insists on denying Palestinians access to the water resources in the Palestinian Territories. The main area of concern is C Zone which is under full Israeli security and administrative control and constitutes 65 per cent of the total area of the West Bank.