How German aid money is disappearing in the West Bank

In the West Bank, complex water projects have been started with millions in German aid money. However, local authorities complain that they cannot be completed due to interventions by Jewish settlers.

In the middle of the occupied West Bank, near Salfit, development aid from Germany could actually have a positive effect. Abdul Karim Az-Zubeidi, the mayor of Salfit, is standing at a drain: Clear water is visibly coming from behind – but a dark liquid is flowing from the right. “The water from behind is our clean water,” says the mayor – and wants to show the difference.

Behind it stands a sewage treatment plant financed by Germany – a building complex with a long history. The German side says that the funds were approved 30 years ago, in 1994. Then there was a long struggle with Israeli authorities to obtain a building permit. The plant has been in operation for just over two years – Germany paid over 19 million euros for it.

Clarified water immediately becomes polluted again

The plant also produces clean water – only where it leaves the treatment plant, large amounts of untreated water are added. Az-Zubeidi, the mayor, also knows where it comes from: “Ariel has 40,000 settlers and they dump their wastewater into our valleys. They have to solve this. We thank Germany for the project, which helps us to clean our wastewater and do something for the environment. But there are 40,000 settlers with this problem.”

Ariel is one of the largest Israeli settlements in the West Bank: there is a university and an industrial area here – and apparently a lot of untreated sewage, which at least partially undermines German development aid efforts.

Settler blocks pipeline system

Another sewage treatment plant, another problem: Here in the west of the city of Nablus, a plant was also built with German help. Germany paid a total of 12 million euros – and at first glance it works: The Palestinian engineers who work here are proud that they purify thousands of cubic meters of water every day, and they even generate electricity from biogas here.

We are standing on a large cylinder that can actually hold 3,000 cubic meters of water. The idea: water from the sewage treatment plant is pumped up here – and then distributed via a pipe system and with the help of gravity to the fields of the Palestinian farmers in the valley.

But the large water reservoir that Germany financed is empty, says engineer Mohamed Humeidan: “We have implemented most of the water reuse project. But we have a small problem with the settler who is sitting in the area for this project.”

Installation cannot be completed

In the distance you can see the sewage treatment plant – and a little closer you can see the place where an Israeli settler is spreading more and more. Yazan Odeh, an agricultural expert, explains why the settler is preventing the project from succeeding: “Last year the settler came and he stayed. But the land belongs to the farmer from our project. But we cannot pump the water into the reservoir. Because we first have to install a drain valve. But that is next to the settler – and no company can get there to install it.”

Because there are repeated cases of violence, Palestinians do not dare to go near the settler. And although he is occupying the land illegally under Israeli law, the Israeli authorities have so far done nothing to drive him off the land.

And so German aid money is disappearing here too – which is actually supposed to ensure that the living conditions of Palestinians in the West Bank improve.