JORDAN VALLEY, August 1, 2018 (WAFA) – The residents of the village of Kardala in the northern Jordan Valley said this week that Israeli forces came to their village and destroyed a water pipeline that was supplying fresh water to the village claiming that this happened while it was searching what it claims were “illegal” water holes.
Residents of the villages of Kardala and nearby Bardala that live off agriculture did not believe the Israeli claim as they watched Israeli forces destroying their pipeline and going from one water pipeline to another in a clear move that Israel is after their water.
Over the past two months, Israeli forces razed water pipelines in the two adjacent villages more than four times under the pretext that they were looking for open holes that they claimed were "illegal."
During the same period, Israeli forces also seized water pipelines from Bardala and destroyed a water pool in the area of al-Farisiya in the northern valley.
Aref Daraghmah, rights activists from the Jordan Valley, said that according to agreements signed with Israel after its 1967 occupation, citizens in the villages of Bardala and Kardala are allowed to have 240 cubic meters of water an hour.
However, this rate dropped over time by more than a half and is not confined to 140 cubic meters.
In the summer, when temperature is usually high, residents need double the quantity of water they would use during winter. Residents say Israel deliberately chooses the summer to destroy the water pipelines.
"If our crops remain without water for days during the winter, they will be slightly affected, but in the summer, they have to be irrigated daily so they don’t die," says Ibrahim Fuqaha, a resident of Kardala and the head of its Green Cooperative Agricultural Society.
"When the water is reduced in the summer, everything else is reduced. Production is no longer the same as it would be if we get enough water,” said Fuqaha.
"Their goal is clear. They just want to empty the Jordan Valley of its original inhabitants in order to make it better for Israeli settlers," said Nabil Fuqaha, a farmer who has land in the Jordan Valley.
The numbers indicate that the average consumption of an Israeli settler living in the northern Jordan Valley is 8 times more than that of a Palestinian citizen, according to a study done by Abdullah Hourani Center.
This indicates that Israel, despite the absence of a balance in the quantities of water consumed by the Palestinian vis-à-vis the settler, also deprives the Palestinians of the right to have additional quantities of water, which it transfers for the benefit of the settlers.
In the last few years, Israel has intensified its war on water in the agricultural areas of the Jordan Valley and has destroyed water pipelines almost daily.
Life in the northern Jordan Valley does not go on without having enough water for the residents and their farms.
"Israel is going after our water and takes it away. We cannot cultivate our lands, which we used to plant in the past with all kinds of crops. We, the humans, also need more water in the summer," said Nabil Fuqaha.
The northern Jordan Valley is considered one of the largest water basins in Palestine, and this is a main reason for making these areas rich in irrigated farming, which, in recent year continued even during the summer.
K.T./M.K.
