Report: 75,000 Bedouin in Negev have limited or no running water
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.603248
Health Ministry does not supervise water quality in the Bedouin villges yet they pay higher water rates, report claims.
by Zafrir Rinat 6 July 2014 Haaretz
The report also notes that the Bedouin cannot pay according to the basic water quota based on the number of people per household, because their houses have no legal status. Consequently, every community pays for all the water it consumes, which comes to a much higher price.
In recent years, 90 percent of the numerous requests the Bedouin submitted to the Water Authority to supply them with water in the unrecognized communities have been denied. The report states that the Water Authority conditions its permission for water supply on settling the land-ownership claims, which many Bedouin families have.
The report says the courts have approved this approach, thus enabling the state to deny the Bedouin community water as a way of pressuring them to renounce their claims, leave their villages and move to places the state has prepared for them.
The Health Ministry responded that the Bedouin community has “unregulated home water systems, but the supplied water is supervised, by sampling the water in the main connections. The Bedouin obtain water from these connections by installing illegal pipes or carrying it in containers.”
The Water Authority said it invests considerable resources and effort to ensure the Bedouin have accessibility to water, and invested 44 million shekels ($12.9 million) this year connecting the communities to the sewage system.
The authority said that paying a reduced water rate is conditional on the consumer having a recognized, legal home address. In the absence of such an address, the Bedouin cannot receive water for the reduced rate.
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