Across the dusty villages of the occupied West Bank, where Israeli water pipes don’t reach, Palestinians say they can't get enough water.
The number of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank now exceeds 500,000, with advocates predicting faster growth under Israel’s new government.“The amount of water that Israel is supplying has not adapted to the needs of Palestinians, and in many cases has not changed since the 1970s,” said Eyal Hareuveni, author of a recent report on the water crisis from Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. “The infrastructure is designed to benefit settlements.
Unlike Palestinian cities, the 500,000 Jewish settlers who live in the West Bank are connected to the Israeli water grid through a sophisticated network that provides water continuously. In the scorching summer, Palestinians get municipal water only sporadically. With regional droughts intensifying, temperatures rising and Israel’s far-right government entrenching military rule over the territory, Palestinians say their water problems have worsened.Ghunaim accused Israel’s national water company of reducing water supplies to the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem and Hebron by 25% for the last nine weeks. Palestinians in Hebron say their taps have run dry this summer for as long as a month.
Osama Abu Sharkh, a 60-year-old carpenter in Hebron’s Old City, has planned each day this summer according to the water flow. When his tap finally springs to life — even if a trickle — his family is jolted into a frenzy of chores: cooking, cleaning, and, crucially, filling their water tanks. The tanks hold costly trucked-in water during the long stretches when the taps are dry.
Ghunaim claimed the recent water cuts were a “political problem” under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government, which has taken a particularly hard line against the Palestinians.Israel’s water authority called the recent disruption to Palestinian cities a technical problem and directed further questions to the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, the Israeli agency that liaises with the Palestinians on civilian affairs.
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