Its location on the foothills of Mount Hermon means that an abundance of water may be one reason why Israel still occupies the farms.
The Shibaa Farms area constitute a major reservoir for the water of Mount Hermon. Whether it is Syrian or Lebanese, I do not think that Israel will give it up easily, Judith Harik, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, said.
Nasser Nasrallah, director-general of the Litani River Authority, told The Daily Star that Israels occupation of the Shibaa Farms prevents Lebanon from using all the ground and surface water from that area.
The amount of groundwater which moves across the border to Israel from the Lebanese side in an average year is 200 million cubic meters (mcm), 113 million of which comes from the Hermon sector, including the Shibaa Farms and the groundwater of the Hasbani River and Wazzani Springs, he said.
Of the 113mcm, the groundwater of the Hasbani River and the Wazzani Springs account for 55mcm while the remaining while 58mcm flows from the Shibaa Farms area.
Nasrallah said he had information that Israel has dug wells to extract as much groundwater as possible.
They are using so much groundwater that some of the permanent Lebanese springs near the borders with Israel, like the Marj al-Khokh spring, dry up in summer, he said.
The abundance of water in the Shibaa Farms area comes mainly from precipitation. Although the rate of evaporation is as high as 50-55 percent, the geological formations in the Mount Hermon-Shibaa Farms area allow the formation of major underground reservoirs.
The geology belongs to the Jurassic age and its rocks are characterized by their fissured karstic limestone which allows the infiltration of water into the underground layers, Kassem Mustapha, a professor of Physical Geography at the Lebanese University explained.
Both Mustapha and Nasrallah agreed that 35-40 percent of total precipitation seeps into the underground reservoirs.
The gradual melting of snow during the warm seasons, further enriches the ground water and increases the number of springs and watercourses at lower elevations, such as in the Shibaa Farms, Nasser said.
The surface water in the Shibaa Farms area collects in Wadi Aasal, which Beirut says marks the genuine frontier between Lebanon and Syria. Wadi Aasal flows into the Galilee panhandle, eventually meeting the Upper Jordan in Israel.
The surface water in that area is low and does not exceed 5 percent, Nasrallah said.
Moreover, Mount Hermon serves as an important source of surface water for the Hasbani and Sreid rivers, which are located near the southern parts of the Shibaa Farms inside Lebanon and are tributaries of the Jordan River in Israel.
Lebanon has not been allowed to utilize the Hasbani since 1965 and Israel now benefits from almost all of the rivers waters. A study by Shmuel Kantor, a former chief engineer and head of the planning department in the Israeli Mekorot Water Company, found that the Hasbani River annually contributes an average 150mcm to the Sea of Galilee. Thus, the construction of dams in Lebanon would have an immediate effect on how much water would eventually reach the Sea of Galilee.
The total available water resources in Israel were up to 1.8 billion to 2 billion cubic meters two to three years ago. But, Israels annual requirement of 1.6 billion cubic meters has grown.
The fact that Lebanon cannot benefit from the Hasbani is being taken into consideration in the list of compensations being studied by the government.
Lebanons water rights to the Hasbani which have been lost since 1965 to the present day are 1.5 billion cubic meters, Nasrallah said. The price of each cubic meter is 20 cents; but thats not all. Additional losses stem from Israel preventing Lebanon from irrigating 5,000 hectares of Lebanese land which led to a lack of investment in the area.
I can say that the direct and indirect losses in regard to our rights in the Hasbani River amount to over $2 billion, he added. However, Nasrallah asserted that Lebanon would not deny occupied Palestines rights to the Hasbani River. Water is the property of the land, not the people, he said.
Issam Khalifeh, a leading professor of modern history at the Lebanese University, explained to The Daily Star that a French-British decision of Feb. 4, 1935, considered the Lebanese and Syrian border to follow the watershed that ran down the side of the mountain. Mount Hermon is considered part of this decision where the Western slopes are Lebanese while the Eastern slopes are Syrian, he said
However, Tyre MP Abdullah Qasir, a member of Hizbullah, told The Daily Star that his groups attempt in recovering the Shibaa Farms was not related to the natural resources of the area: Hizbullah does not take into consideration the richness of the land in water, soil, or any other economic reason when it comes to liberating the land. It is enough for us that Lebanese land is occupied by Israel to make us fight for it.