Water supply to Bedouin town cut off
Residents of Lakiya carry water in buckets to their homes for more than a week because of municipality's debt to Mekorot National Water Company, complain that turning off water is collective punishment. 'We can't go on like this'
For more than a week, parts of the Bedouin village of Lakiya have been disconnected from the national water supply.
The municipal council did not pay its debts, which stand at more than NIS 1.5 million (about $400,000), to Mekorot National Water Company. As a result, provision of water to the village has been cut down to just six hours a day. Lakiya residents living in higher areas of the village are not receiving water at all and have resorted to methods used decades ago as they carry water to their houses in buckets.
Juma'a Azbarga, a 53-year-old father of nine, told Ynet, "It is hard for us to get by. We load up the water a few kilometers from here and carry the buckets home. For a few hours, Mekorot supplies water in the faucets, but it doesn't reach us. This is an intolerable situation and we cannot go on like this.
"We take showers with buckets like in the 30s. There is nothing like this in a modern country. The village has a debt, but there are people here who pay (their bills). This is collective punishment. The situation is very difficult for the children. We have three showers and bathrooms in the house, but we can't go in there."
Doing laundry in 2009 (Photo: Eliad Levy)
Marahil al-Faqir, a 49-year-old father of seven, said that he is most bothered by the municipal authorities' treatment of the fact that there is no water in the faucets.
"I invested in my house and in the end I'm stuck without water. I'm not guilty that other people didn't pay. Every month, these problems are repeated. Why do I need to tolerate this? Some 30 years ago, I was in a shack. We would take the donkey and bring water from the well, but today this is impossible. We are in Israel, not a third-world country. I feel powerless. This isn't a different world, but part of the country."
Pupils home early due to lack of water
Marahil, a Jewish literature teacher in one of the village's schools, said he has no desire to stay in the country when he returns home from work in the afternoon and has no water.
Abdullah Abu Shariki, 43, is a member of Lakiya's municipal council. He pointed a finger at the local authority: "The council can't shake off its responsibility. It cannot be that people use the facilities in their homes and there is no way of flushing down the water. It cannot be that pupils return from school early because there is no water."
Head of the Lakiya's municipal council, Khaled al-Sana said that they are looking into the possibility of bringing back the water supply with the help of Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau. "In my house there also isn't any water right now. We provided water to Maccabi Hospital and to the schools through water tankers and gave instructions that schools that don't have water will learn only until 12:30."
Mekorot reported in response: "We turned to the Lakiya council with repeated requests to pay their debt. Only after we were left with no other option, we were forced to limit the supply of water to a few hours a day in to allow the council to collect payment from its residents and pay Mekorot.
"It must be noted that Mekorot supplies water to the village and charges the council NIS 3 (about $0.80) per 1,000 liters (about 265 gallons) while the council charges its residents two to three times this amount."
