Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Friday urged the international community – especially the Palestinian Authority's Mediterranean neighbors – to work to find a solution to the dire problem of water access in the territories.
"We must work to increase access to available resources and find a solution, based on international laws for sharing water resources," Fayaad said.
The Palestinian prime minister was speaking at a Mediterranean climate conference in Athens, where the PA, Israel and15 other regional countries agreed Friday to work together to combat the effects of climate change that threaten the region.
The countries signed a declaration calling for "contributing to the emergence of low carbon, resource efficient and climate resilient economies."
Increasing the Palestinians access to water resources, said Fayaad, "Is a challenge. An effort must be made to address this problem in the political process. We must find a solution to increase the availability of water for the population."
The Palestinian leader said that "less than 10% of the population had access to drinking water in Gaza."
"Israel takes 90% of the water and it leaves us with 10% of resources, our situation is particularly difficult our problems are real – water consumption is below the average recommended by the World Health Organization, he added."