Palestinian herders hard-hit by Israeli restrictions

Hard-hit by a severe three-year drought and tough restrictions on movement imposed by the Zionist regime, 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 al-Khalil 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.

In the al-Khalil 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.

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.