Israel is depriving Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip of adequate drinking water, and is diverting a disproportionate amount to Jewish settlers and to the Jewish state itself, according to a report released today by Amnesty International.

In addition, an investigation by Save the Children showed that tens of thousands of Palestinians suffer daily shortages of food, a high rate of unemployment, insecurity and displacement and separation of families due to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip and closures within the West Bank.

The damning reports paint a grim picture of life in the Palestinian territories, both in Hamas-ruled Gaza, which has been under blockade for years, and in the West Bank, which is still under Israeli military occupation.

Amnesty International said that Palestinians receive only 20 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main water source for both Israel and the Palestinian territories, while taking more than 80 per cent for itself. While Israel has other sources, such as the Sea of Galilee and Jordan River basin, the aquifer is the only water source for the Palestinians in the West Bank.

It said that while daily water consumption for an Israeli averages more than 300 litres a day, Palestinians receive barely 70 litres a day each, and in some rural communities as little as 20 litres a day, the minimum amount recommended for domestic use in emergencies.

As many as 200,000 Palestinians in rural areas have no access to running water, the report said, adding that the Israeli army often stops Palestinians from even gathering rainwater.

“In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools,” the report said. “Numbering about 450,000, the settlers use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million.”

“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” Donatella Rovera, the author of the Amnesty International report, said.

The report added that in the Gaza Strip, about 90 to 95 per cent of the water for the population of 1.5 million Palestinians comes from a single coastal aquifer which is contaminated and unfit for human consumption.

Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the West Bank water source to Gaza. Save the Children said that the level of poisonous nitrates in Gaza’s water is the highest recorded, with each child in the coastal enclave ingesting up to 300 times the World Health Organisation standard in their water.

“Nitrate is a silent poisoner,” the report said. “You can't smell, taste, see it and you rarely see the side affects until the very final stages when the victim turns blue, due to lack of oxygen in their blood stream.”

Amnesty International said that the situation had reached a crisis point in Gaza because of the severe restrictions placed on the territory in recent years, and especially since Hamas – which has been holding an Israeli soldier hostage for more than three years – took absolute control of the area in fighting with its rival movement Fatah in 2007.

“Over more than 40 years of occupation, restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians’ access to water have prevented the development of water infrastructure and facilities in the [Palestinian territories], consequently denying hundreds of thousands of Palestinians the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing, or health, and to economic development,” Ms Rovera said.

A spokesman for the Israeli administration in the West Bank said that the allegations were “exaggerated and unfounded", adding that the report had been compiled without consultation with Israel.

“It does not provide for fair and factual analysis,” the spokesman said.

Israeli security sources blamed “Palestinian water theft” for the loss of millions of cubic litres of drinking water every year, which they said was illicitly diverted for agricultural use.

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