Update.........on Ramallah water situation

Ramallah/Al-Bireh, 9:10PM Palestinian Time (GMT+2) -- The water issue is still outstanding in Ramallah. This morning the water crew was able to visit the pumping station after a lot of coordination with Israeli DCO (district coordinating office), even though most times even this coordination does not guarantee protection from Israeli soldiers and tanks. But the situation is so tense they tried to get some assurances that the Palestinian repair crew would not be injured.

It did not work. An Israeli tank tried to smash one of JWU "Jerusalem Water Undertaking" cars while they were attempting to reach the damaged pumping station.

The Red Cross is not cooperating with the Palestinian JWU at all and the repair crew had to move alone. The crew reports that they "were about to be killed many times". Israeli gunfire took place on one of the JWU cars.

JWU repair crew were forced to take to the ground for long periods every time they faced a tank.

Upon reaching the station late morning, they found the doors have been damaged, the pump monitoring cameras shot, the control system shut down, two pumps burned (due to the heavy Israeli Apache shelling that took place two nights ago), another pump was strangely broken. The fourth pump was damaged but repairable.

The Palestinian JWU crew were able to operate the fourth pump today before being forced to leave the station due to Israeli gunfire in their direction.

This will greatly minimize the possibility of a human catastrophe in Ramallah although the pressure will not probably reach all homes.