Vatten

Turkiets premiärminister Erdogan är på besök i Iran. Irans president Ahmadinejad prisade Erdogan för hans inställning till Israel och klargjorde ännu en gång att "Sionistregimen (Israel) är ett hot mot alla nationer".
'Zionist regime a threat to all nations'

En katyusharaket sköts mot Israel, Kiryat Shmona, från Libanon idag. Ingen skadades i attacken. Det är ännu oklart vem som stod bakom attacken.
Nio raketer har skjutits från Libanon mot Israel sedan kriget sommaren 2006.
Police: None hurt as Katyusha rocket lands in Upper Galilee Jerusalem Post
Katyusha explodes in north Israel; no casualties Haaretz

Amnesty har publicerat en rapport som påstår att Israel inte levererar tillräckligt med vatten till palestinierna. Antagligen kommer vi att få läsa om rapporten i våra tidningar. Det är ingen hemlighet att det råder brist på vatten i regionen men det verkar som om Amnesty åter en gång skulle publicera en ensidig rapport som ger Israel skulden för alla problem. I verkligheten levererar Israel mer vatten till palestinierna än rådande avtal skulle kräva.
Fred i Mellanöstern skriver: Palestinierna gör av med mer vatten än svenskarna
Här nedan några kommentarer till rapporten från de israeliska myndigheterna:
Water Authority blasts Amnesty on report
The Water Authority slammed Amnesty International on Monday for failing to allow it to make any sort of presentation to Amnesty's researchers or react to the organization's findings on water allocation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority before the publication of its new critical report on Tuesday morning.
The authority also called into question some of the basic facts presented in the report.

- The report also cites a vast difference in daily water use for the two parties. Amnesty cites 400 liters per day for Israelis, and just 70 for Palestinians. That figure puts the Palestinians below the World Health Organization recommendation of 100 liters per day.

- However, the Water Authority hotly disputed those figures. According to the authority, while Israelis use 408 liters per day of fresh water from natural sources, Palestinians use 200 liters per day. While acknowledging the difference between these two amounts, the authority stressed that it was nowhere near as drastic as Amnesty had portrayed it.

- The Foreign Ministry also refuted the report on Tuesday, stating that according to the existing water agreement, the Palestinians are allocated 23.6 million cubic meters of water per year, but "in actual effect, they have access to twice as much water."

- In its statement, the Foreign Ministry said that Israel has "extensively surpassed the obligatory quantity" of water supplied to the Palestinians, while the Palestinians have "significantly violated their commitments under the water agreement" by neglecting the construction of sewage treatment plants despite "foreign funding earmarked for this purpose," as well as drilling over 250 unauthorized wells.

- However, according to the Water Authority, while Israeli access to water before 1967 came out to about 500 cubic meters per person per year, nowadays it is just 149 cu.m. per year, a drop of 70%. In contrast, from a pre-1967 86 cu.m. per person per year, Palestinian consumption has risen to 105 cu.m.

- The Water Authority also stressed that it routinely provided the PA with more water per year than the amounts stipulated in the Oslo Accords. It also said Palestinians routinely dug illegal wells and refused to purify and reuse their sewage for agriculture. Instead, they dumped their sewage into the streams in the West Bank, causing massive pollution.