Israel claims 'historic' water agreement will save Dead Sea Silvan Shalom, the Israeli energy and regional development minister, said the deal was a result of "strategic cooperation of diplomatic significance between Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority." This is a breakthrough after many years of efforts. It is nothing less than a historic move," he told Israel Radio before concluding the agreement at a signing ceremony with Hazem Nasser, Jordan's water minister, and Shaddad Attili, the Palestinian Authority's minister in charge of water affairs. The agreement will also include a water trading arrangement, under which Israel will receive between 6,600 and 11,000 gallons to use in the resort city of Eilat and the Arava region. Jordan will receive 6,600 gallons for the south of the country and another 11,000 gallons from Israel's Lake Kinneret, also known as the Sea of Galilee, bordering the Golan Heights. The Palestinian Authority will also receive water from Lake Kinneret to improve supplies in the West Bank. But environmentalists criticised the agreement, with Friends of the Earth accusing Mr Shalom of "misleading the Israeli public" by packaging it as an initiative to save the Dead Sea. "What is being devised here is nothing to do with the Red-Dead Canal project but is a water exchange programme, " Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director of EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East, told The Telegraph. The link to the Dead Sea that's being proposed here threatens the viability of the project from an environmental and economic perspective. It will bring foreign water into the Dead Sea that would upset its ecosystem, creating Gypum and quite probably algae. A much bigger project, which proposed pumping two billion cubic meters of water from Aqaba to the Dead Sea, including the construction of a nearby desalination plant, was deemed economically and environmentally unfeasible by the World Bank. The agreement will also include a water trading arrangement, under which Israel will receive 30-50 million cubic meters to use in the resort city of Eilat and the Arava region. Jordan will receive 30 million cubic meters for use in the south of the country and another 50 million from Israel's Lake Kinneret, also known as the Sea of Galilee, bordering the Golan Heights. A much bigger project, which proposed pumping two billion cubic meters of water from Aqaba to the Dead Sea, incluidng the construction of a nearby desalination plant, was deemed economically and environmentally unfeasible by the World Bank.