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Israel destroys UN-sponsored water pipeline in Jordan Valley

February 20, 2017 at 1:54 pm

Thousands of Palestinians rely on drinking water pipelines [Abed Rahim Khatib/Apa Images]

Israeli authorities today destroyed a pipeline supplying the northern Jordan Valley communities with drinking water under the premise that it was “built without a permit”.

Mutaz Bsharat, an official in charge of the Jordan Valley file in the Tubas district, said in a statement that staff from the Israeli Civil Administration, escorted by bulldozers and military vehicles, entered the area and began removing one of the water pipelines which was funded by UNICEF.

This is the second time the pipeline, connecting the Atouf village, southeast of Jenin, and Khirbat Al-Hadida, east of Tubas, has been destroyed by the Israeli authorities this month, Bsharat said.

Eyewitnesses said large areas of cultivated land were also damaged.

Palestinians living in the northern Jordan Valley continue to be subject of Israeli confiscations and fines, aimed at displacing them. The Valley area, which forms a third of the occupied West Bank, is often cited as a strategic part to the future state of Israel.