Water crisis

Water crisis

Throughout the summer months, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank suffer a severe shortage of water for personal consumption, bathing, cleaning, livestock and irrigation. The severe shortage violates basic human rights, including the right to health, decent housing, equality, and the benefit of natural resources. All this is the result of the Israeli policy, in place since 1967, which is based on unfair allocation of water resources in the West Bank.

Background: Water crisis

Featured update

27 Sep 2016

Summer 2016 - Israel cut back on the already inadequate water supply to Palestinians

Rand ‘Awwad from the village of Salem, washing the dishes without running water. Still from video

Israel has exclusive control of the Palestinian water supply in the West Bank. It supplies less water to the Palestinians than the WHO recommends and less than it supplies to Israelis, doing so through inequitable distribution of joint resources, mounting obstacles to prevent the development of infrastructure, demolishing and confiscating infrastructure and barring access to local water resources. In Area C, Israel exploits its full control to prohibit water-grid hookups to dozens of communities. Since June, in order to meet settlers’ needs, the Israeli national water company has further cut back on water supply to Palestinians in the northern West Banks, as it does every summer.

Featured video

Israel cuts water supply to the village of Salem, summer 2016

In early June, during the month of Ramadan, the Israeli water company, Mekorot, cut back water supply to several Palestinian communities in the northern West Bank, including the village of Salem, which is located east of Nablus and has a population of about 5,000. These communities suffered from an acute water shortage throughout the summer, and continue to suffer from it today. Israel has exclusive control over the supply of water to the entire West Bank, and the amount of water it supplies to Palestinians falls short of the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization, and far short of the amount supplied to Israelis. In this video, Rand ‘Awad, 43, married mother of three, speaks about living with a water shortage and the many difficulties caused by the recent cutback.

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