Following is a story of two villages – Susya and Sussia. They lie close together, but worlds apart.
In the Palestinian village of Susya, a woman sits by a dried out water cistern; the land around her is parched and barren. In the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Sussia, sprinklers irrigate vast green fields and children play in the pool.
This is not a story of natural disaster, but of calculated discrimination.
The deadly drought that grips the village of Susya has been deliberately created by an Israeli Government that is set on driving Palestinian civilians off the land they have lived on for centuries.
"Water is life. Without water we cannot live; not us, not the animals, or the plants. Before we had some water, but after the army destroyed everything we have to bring water from far away. They make our life very difficult, to make us leave." Fatima al-Nawajah, a resident of Susya, speaking to Amnesty.
Amnesty International researchers visited Palestinian communities throughout the Occupied Territories and found that chronic suffering caused by deliberate denial of water is now widespread.