Jerusalem rejects AI accusations on water supplies as unfounded

Israel has rejected accusations by the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) that the Palestinians do not have access to an adequate supply of drinking water. The Israel-Palestinian water policy was based on an interim agreement between the two parties, the Israeli Foreign Ministry pointed out. "Israel has fulfilled all its obligations under the water agreement regarding the supply of additional quantities of water to the Palestinians, and has even extensively surpassed the obligatory quantity," a statement said. "The Palestinians, on the other hand, have significantly violated their commitments under the water agreement, specifically regarding important issues such as illegal drilling and handling of sewage."

An AI report accuses Israel of denying the Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies. The report claims that Palestinian daily water consumption was about 70 liters a day, compared to 300 liters per day for Israelis – a figure Israel disputes. The report also says that  180,000 to 200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities had no access to running water, and that the Israeli Army often prevented them from collecting rainwater.

The Foreign Ministry statement concluded: “While Israel has significantly reduced its use of fresh natural water since 1967, consistently closing the gap between Israeli and Palestinian consumption, it remains unclear how Amnesty's claims of "discriminatory policies" towards Palestinians can sustain the trial of reality. The authors of the report chose to ignore Israeli data, papers and reports, although they contain verifiable facts presented with total transparency. This questionable approach, which consists in systematically disregarding Israeli material while relying exclusively on Palestinian allegations, raises doubts as to the real intentions of the report's authors and of the organization itself.”