ACRI appealed to the Administrative Court in Be’er Sheva on behalf of the Follow-Up Committee on Arab Education in Israel, and parents of students from the unrecognized village of Tel Arad. The petition was filed against the Ministry of Education, the al-Kasom Regional Council, and the Authority for the Development and Settlement of the Bedouin in the Negev, demanding that they connect Tel Arad’s service center, which supports the kindergartens and grades 1-9 in the locality, to running water.
The unrecognized village of Tel Arad is located in an area that doesn’t belong to a municipality, and educational services are provided to residents by the Ministry of Education and the al-Kasom Regional Council, which serves as an executive arm for the provision of educational services in accordance with an agreement signed between both parties in 2005.
The Tel Arad service center has operated for decades yet has never been connected to water infrastructure, despite there being no planning restrictions from doing so. Thus far, the authorities have assisted the residents of the village in temporarily connecting the educational institution to a resident’s home nearby, wherein the council compensated the resident for water consumption. Due to a financial dispute that arose between the parties, the kindergartens were cut off from water on 12.3.2020.
On 21.5.2020, a petition was submitted demanding that the service center be connected to water, and an initial hearing was scheduled for 27.5.2020. On the morning of the hearing the authorities rushed to provide the school with a water tanker, yet the court announced that this was solely an emergency solution for three days. It was further reported that there are plans to lay a permanent pipeline as part of a long-term solution, which will take approximately seven months, yet that there is admittedly no solution for the interim period.
The hearing concluded with the court accepting the petition, and obliging the Ministry of Education to provide water to the service center on a regular basis within four days.
For more information (Hebrew)