Israeli military vehicles descending on the South Hebron Hills ( Photo Credit – Operation Dove)
The Israeli military demolished three cisterns and two wells in the South Hebron Hills villages of Khasem ad-Daraj and Hathaleen. In the early morning of December 14, five bulldozers accompanied by the Israeli military, border police, and DCO (Israeli Civil Administration) made the long trek through the arid, rocky hills in order to demolish much-needed cisterns and to destroy wells by filling them with dirt.
Villagers told international activists that the DCO had failed to personally deliver the demolition orders two days previously but had instead left the orders under a stone near the cisterns. The DCO officials who oversaw the demolition of the cisterns and wells stated that the Israeli Civil Administration had not issued building permits and the structures were therfore illegal.
The Christian Peacemaker Teams reported on the incident [1]:
The demolished cisterns and wells supplied drinking water to the villagers as well as their sheep and goats — the primary sources of food and income for the villages in the area. The wells were over seventy years old, pre-dating the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The Israeli military claims that it does not destroy structures created before 1967.
These rural Bedouin villages lie in the rolling hills to the southeast of Hebron and mark the southern edge of the Hebron hills. The Palestinians of this region are herders and dry-land farmers who rely on rainfall to nourish their crops and provide grasses for their flocks. The severe drought of the last several years has exacerbated the ongoing water shortage due to Israel’s control over water distribution and has jeapordized the viability of these Bedouins’ lifestyle.
Israeli bulldozer destroying a cistern. (Photo Credit – Operation Dove)
Villages in the South Hebron Hills are typically not connected to a water network and are forced to purchase privatized water transported in tankers. Water on the private market is three to six times more expensive [2] than what is available in Israeli households and even more expensive in cases where villages are not accessible by paved roads, as is the case with Khasem ad-Daraj and Hathaleen. Palestinians in the Hebron region use 57-80 liters of water per capita each day, dangerously below the World Health Organization’s minimum of 150 liters.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers use more than 300 liters of water per capita each day[3]. Despite all of the water vulnerabilities that the herders and farmers of the South Hebron Hills face [4] as a result of the occupation and a warming planet, Israel still has the gall to demolish cisterns and to destroy wells that were built before 1967.
Climbing to the crest of one of the countless hills in the region provides a stunning view. To the east the hills fade to a murky dust as the hills slope off into the scorching Dead Sea basin. To the south, the hills slide into the Negev desert and visible is the Israeli city of Arad.
Miraculously, this section of the Green Line is not scarred by concrete walls or chainlink fences which is a reminder of the geographical continuity of the land.
The beauty of the view is overshadowed by the inhumanity of denying people access to water. No reasonable justification, not even the all-purpose ‘security’ justification, can be used to explain the destruction of water cisterns and wells in the isolated, arid hills of Hebron. It’s simply an attempt to ethnically cleanse this land of Palestinians, a process that was nearly accomplished in 1999[5]. Since 1999, the residents have been courageously struggling to remain on their land but each act of destruction and dispossession carried out by Israeli settlers and the Israeli military further jeapordizes their chance of survival.
Samuel Nichols works with the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), primarily in the South Hebron Hills and in the Old City of Hebron.He blogs at samuelnichols.blogspot.com.
