Israeli armored tanks last night destroyed a water pipe serving Palestinian communities in the northern Jordan Valley region, in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Derar Sawafta, member of the local council of Bardala village, in the northern Jordan Valley, told WAFA that a 200-meter-long water pipe was destroyed as the Israeli armored vehicles ran over it during a military exercise, which involved the use of gunfire, in the area.
Sealed Off and Forgotten: What You Should Know about Israel’s ‘Firing Zones’ in the West Bank https://t.co/N9ZLBDbST7 via @MiddleEastMnt #Palestine #IsraeliCrimes pic.twitter.com/Ay2bxVqF7V
— Ramzy Baroud (@RamzyBaroud) March 21, 2020
In the meantime, dozens of armored vehicles deployed for the first time on the outskirts of the villages of Tayasir and al-Aqaba, east of Tubas town.
Palestinian residents of the Jordan Valley regularly face evictions due to Israeli military exercises on or near their land. Only last month, Israeli forces evicted the village’s population three times for the same purpose.
Access to clean water is a human right, so why is Palestine an exception? https://t.co/k5eu3JcZdK
— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) April 16, 2019
The Jordan Valley covers an area of about 1.6 million dunams (1,600 km2) and constitutes around 30 percent of the total occupied West Bank. According to a previous government report, the Valley includes about 280,000 dunams of arable land, 50,000 of which are still used by Palestinians and 27,000 by illegal Jewish settlers.
The majority of the Jordan Valley is under full Israeli military control, despite being within the West Bank. Meanwhile, at least 44 percent of the total land in the Jordan Valley has been reappropriated by Israeli forces for military purposes and training exercises.
(Palestine Chronicle, WAFA, Social Media)
