ISFEY FOQA, West Bank (AFP) — Hard-hit by a severe three-year drought and tough restrictions on movement imposed by Israel, Palestinian shepherds are facing what some elders call their worst crisis in living memory.
"All we have left is hope," says Musa Abdullah Awad, a wizened 49-year-old herder as he looks down at the remaining water in his cistern, which he says is barely enough to keep his goats alive a little longer.
As far as the eye can see there is nothing but dust, rocks and grinding poverty.
With more than 100 goats, Awad is better off than many of his neighbours whose homes dot the Hebron Hills on the southern edge of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, one of the most drought-stricken areas in the region.
"These are people who are used to a tough life but they are now on the edge," says Helge Kvam of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has been providing emergency relief to the herders.
Much of the region has been affected by a lack of rain in winter, the wet season, and Israel has announced restrictions on household water consumption as its reservoirs stand at a 10-year-low.
"The situation is bad, it is very bad. There is an acute water shortage in the country," Israeli water authority spokesman Uri Shor said recently.
In the Hebron Hills, the crisis caused by three successive years of drought has been compounded by Israeli-imposed restrictions that have sharply reduced grazing areas and access to water.
"They used to take their animals to graze all across the West Bank, and even into Jordan," says Mohammed Sheikh Ali, an economic security expert with the ICRC. "Now the grazing range is just a few kilometers," he says, pointing to the bone-dry hills.
The patchwork of Israeli settlements, military zones and barriers that truncate the West Bank, as well as a strict permit system in areas under full Israeli control, prevent herds from reaching grazing areas and makes access to water difficult, according to humanitarian organisations.
About 10 kilometers (six miles) from Awad's house, an Israeli settlement closed off to Palestinians prevents direct access to Yatta, the nearest town, where water tankers fill up.
To get to Yatta, local herders must make a long detour, partly along treacherous dirt roads which the Israeli army regularly blocks with earth mounds aimed at preventing Palestinians from illegally entering nearby Israel.
The arid hills around Awad's home in the poor village of Isfey Foqa have been designated a "closed military area' by Israel.
That means the few people who will drive tractors there to deliver supplies risk losing their licences or even their vehicles. This in turn drastically increases the price of water and of the fodder on which the herds survive during the dry months.
As a result of difficult access and high prices, about 10 percent of the West Bank's Palestinian population of 2.3 million consume less than 10 litres of water a day, according to a recent UN report. The World Health Organisation recommends 50 to 100 litres a day for health and hygiene.
The ICRC delivered water to 1,000 people and their 50,000 sheep in the Hebron area last month in a bid to ward off immediate disaster.
Aid workers admit that while such emergency measures are crucial, they do not address the roots of the problem.
"We do make a difference but what is needed are fundamental changes such as access to land and access to water," says ICRC spokesman Helge Kvam.
In Hebron alone, there are 226 physical obstacles, such as barriers or settlement gates, in addition to Israeli "flying checkpoints" that hinder access to water filling stations, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA.)
Israel says the separation barrier and other restrictive measures in the West Bank are needed to prevent Palestinian attacks in the Jewish state.
High fuel and fodder prices, competition from imported meat and rising food prices further add to the herders' headaches.
Palestinian shepherds in the Hebron Hills also say they are regularly attacked by settlers when they graze their animals close to the Israeli settlements just a few kilometers from their homes.
Two months ago Israeli police arrested two settlers in connection with the beating of Palestinian shepherds not far from Awad's home in an incident that was captured on video and broadcast around the world.
The footage shows masked men swinging clubs in an brutal attack on an elderly Palestinian shepherd and his wife who were grazing their flock.
"Harassment is always a danger," says Awad, adding that settlers often shoot livestock grazing close to their wire fence that surrounds the Israeli enclaves.
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