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Christian Peacemaker Teams 12 July --
by James R. Thomas

[Note: According to the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of Justice in the Hague, and numerous United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts are considered illegal under Israeli law.]

On 6 and 11 July, 2011 Atta Jaber called the Hebron CPT Office to report that the Mekorot Water Company had destroyed plastic irrigation pipes in his family’s gardens. Mekorot, Israel’s national water company, employed young Palestinians to cut the water lines and accused the Jabers of stealing water by tapping into lines that supply the nearby Israeli settler communities of Harsina and Kiryat Arba ... The United Nations Covenant establishes that under international law it is illegal for Israel to expropriate the water of the Occupied Palestinian Territories for use by its own citizens, and doubly illegal to expropriate it for use by Israeli settlers ... The extended Jaber family has deeds to their lands dating back to the time of the Ottoman Empire. Atta Jaber believes that the water that flows to the Beqa‘a valley comes from an aquifer under the town of Bethlehem. "Palestinians should not have to pay for what is already their own," he told CPTers. If their gardens fail, the family fears, Israel will declare the empty dunums of land unused, or abandoned, and settlers will claim them.