Israeli Scientists and Activists Bring Green Power to West Bank Palestinians

A group of Israeli physicists brought solar power and high-efficiency lighting to impoverished Palestinian villages in the hope of reversing the trend of extreme poverty found in this war torn area. Comet-ME, a coalition of Israeli activists and scientists worked together to help the 500 or so Palestinian households in the region.

While nearby Jewish and Arab settlements are fed electricity by power lines snaking overhead, the Palestinians living in these improvised cave and tent dwellings are given no connection to the power grid. This desolate, dusty, but quiet section of the West Bank is under the authority of the Israeli Defense Force, which claims that it never received a request for a utility tie-in from any of the communities. To rectify this problem, Comet-ME installed solar power in order to improve the villager's quality of life. It is hoped that electricity will allow these people to increase their income, enabling stall vendors to refrigerate their produce and work after the sunsets under the light of CFL light bulbs.

These villagers did have access to electricity before, in the form of diesel generators. The noisy machines required a constant stream of fuel in order to continue generation and were generally too old or had seen too many repairs to filter out the dangerous particulate emissions. "The communities here are in deep poverty. The project is targeted to help them make more revenue from their own work," said Noam Dotan, an activist with Comet-ME.

More than 2.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, though Comet-ME believes they can bring this green energy to the poorest 500 families over the next four years. The Associated Press quoted one of these villagers, Mohammad Ahmed Nasser Nawaja, who in praise of Comet-ME said, "This is an example of the coexistence between Arabs and Jews, and this is a very important thing." Comet-ME says that the installations will cement the community in place. Villagers faced military evictions in the past over scuffles with neighboring Jewish settlements.