Jordan welcomes PA-Israel water deal

AMMAN/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Jordan on Thursday welcomed a water agreement reached between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel.

Water Minister Hazem Nasser on Thursday commended the  deal, which, he explained, is related to the Jordan-initiated Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance project, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The agreement came as a result of a memorandum of understanding that was signed by Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Israel in 2013 in Washington DC, which stipulates that Israel provide Palestine with 30 million cubic metres (mcm) of additional water quantities per year. 

Nasser said that the agreement ensures a new source of water for Palestinians apart from what had been agreed on in the Oslo Accords between the Palestinian leadership and Israel. 

Under the deal, Israel is committed to supplying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with additional amounts of water as of this summer until 2021. The Red-Dead’s first phase is slated to begin in 2018 and finish 2021.  

US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy announced an Israeli-Palestinian water agreement, which is part of the World Bank-sponsored plan to build a nearly 200-km pipeline from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea and a desalination plant in the Jordanian port of Aqaba that was agreed in principle in 2013.

The deal aims to increase fresh water supplies for Jordan, the Palestinians and Israel and revitalise the Dead Sea’s falling water levels. 

Israeli Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, estimated it would take another four to five years to complete the $900 million endeavour.

The desalination plant will produce at least 80mcm of water annually. Under an agreement signed with Jordan in 2015, Israel will buy up to 40mcm of that at cost each year.

Greenblatt said Israel, whose own desalination plants have led to a water surplus, would sell up to 33mcm metres to the Palestinian Authority as part of the finalised agreement signed on Thursday.

Palestinian Water Authority head Mazen Ghoneim put the figure at 32mcm and said 22mcm would go to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and 10mcm to the Gaza Strip.

“We hope that this deal will contribute to the healing of the Dead Sea and that it will help not only Palestinians and Israelis but Jordanians as well,” Greenblatt said.

“I am proud of the role that the United States and our international partners have played in helping the parties reach this deal and I hope it is a harbinger of things to come.”

The idea of a canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea was first talked about by the British in the 1850s, as an alternative to the Suez Canal, according to Reuters. 

Many plans have since been proposed, mainly aiming to preserve the Dead Sea, whose minerals are used in ointments and cosmetics.