OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israel formally agreed Tuesday to double the amount of fresh water it provides to neighbouring Jordan, one of the world's most water-deficient nations.

The two countries announced in July that Israel would sell 50 million cubic metres of water a year to Jordan, doubling what it already supplies according to the terms of a peace deal from the 1990s.

The new agreement is proof that "we want good neighbourly relations," Karine Elharrar, Israel's minister of infrastructure, energy and water resources, said in a statement. Elharrar travelled to Jordan for a signing ceremony between representatives of the Joint Water Committee that manages bilateral relations in the sector.

A source from Jordan's water and irrigation ministry confirmed to AFP that the two sides inked the agreement for Jordan to "purchase additional quantities of water... outside the framework of the peace agreement".

Gidon Bromberg, Israel director of the regional environmental group EcoPeace Middle East, said the deal "represents the largest water sale in the history of the two countries". It "reflects the growing understanding that the climate crisis already heavily impacting the region must lead to increased cooperation", he said. Jordanian-Israeli cooperation on water goes back a hundred years.

In 1921, a Russian-Jewish engineer convinced British and Hashemite authorities to approve a hydropower station where the Yarmuk tributary meets the Jordan River.