25, 000 lack water in Ramallah
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 2 April 2002
Some 25,000 people in Ramallah and its environs are without water after pipe lines and electricity lines were ruptured by Israel Defense Forces tank movement in the city, according to Palestinian officials.
Meanwhile, the army is preventing Ramallah residents from burying their dead, and the Ramallah Hospital morgue, capable of storing17 bodies, is overflowing, with 25 bodies awaiting burial as of last night, said hospital officials.
Most of the neighborhoods around Yasser Arafat's headquarters in mid-Ramallah have had their water and electricity cut after tank movements ruptured lines.
The IDF has begun allowing crews to make repairs, but that requires lengthy coordination efforts that must be renewed daily, and often the permission given by commanders does not reach the soldiers on the ground.
In addition to the tank movements, which broke electricity poles and water mains - as did several trenches across roads dug by IDF bulldozers throughout the city - electrical lines have been downed by direct fire and explosions. Many Ramallah neighborhoods are now being supplied with electricity through a single electrical main.
Ali Hamuda, director of the East Jerusalem Electric Company in Ramallah, said that if that reserve line is broken, the entire city will be without electricity. He issued a warning yesterday to Ramallah residents that one power station, not far from Arafat's besieged office, was broken by shooting, but it remains electrified and is extremely dangerous.
Elsewhere in the city, downed electricity lines also are electrified and lie close by large puddles that grew after water mains broke.
Four villages near Ramallah have been completely cut off from water, according to Abdel Karim Assad, head of the Jerusalem Water Undertaking, the company that provides the water. Assad estimates that some25 , 000residents in the city of100 , 000and its environs have been cut off from water supplies for the last four days.
The electrical connection to Arafat's offices was renewed on Saturday after the IDF allowed workers from the East Jerusalem Electric Company to make repairs.
Yesterday - after lengthy negotiated coordination with the army - a team of water engineers was allowed into Arafat's compound to make repairs to the water supply. They jury-rigged a direct connection for water in Arafat's offices, bypassing the water tank on the roof. The team hopes to return today to restore the connection to the water tank on the roof.
Assad said he hopes the IDF and the Civil Administration will provide authorizations for two more teams, altogether eight people, to resume repairs throughout the rest of the city.
Hamuda also reported difficulties in coordinating his teams' movements to repair electricity supply throughout the city. On Saturday, he said, he was part of a team that was shot at when leaving Arafat's compound, and he and the rest of the crew were forced to strip their clothes and at gunpoint were forced to lie down on the ground. On Sunday, despite a Red Cross escort and coordination with IDF commanders, an electrical repair team was delayed five times on their way to make repairs.
As of last night there were 25 corpses in the Ramallah morgue. Various Palestinian officials have been trying to coordinate with Israeli officials to enable the families to bury the dead. As in Jewish tradition, Islamic tradition requires immediate burial after death.