In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians struggle to access water

JORDAN VALLEY, West Bank — Mansour Arara, 24, sits in the shade of a tree with a group of friends next to the Al-Auja freshwater spring. His young nephew and a friend jump and splash in the cool water. It’s a hot July day, nearly 100 degrees, and the sun beats off the dusty landscape around them.

Arara and his friends are boiling water from the spring for tea over a small cooking stove, keeping an eye on the younger boys as they play.

“We were so happy to get here today and not be stopped by the soldiers,” he says.

This is the fourth spring the group tried to visit today — the other three were blocked by Israeli settlers with the help of the Israeli military, Arara says. When they tried to come to this spring on other days in the weeks before, he says, Israeli soldiers sent them back.

“They told us that since Oct. 7, we are forbidden from coming here,” Arara says. Meanwhile, he says he could see Israeli settlers using the spring and collecting water.

For Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, access to water has been a struggle for years. Interim agreements from the 1990s have allowed for a water disparity between Israelis and Palestinians, and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank has often meant Israeli settlers’ water needs are prioritized over Palestinians’.

But since last Oct. 7, when the Hamas-led attack on Israel sparked the current war in Gaza, water has been even harder to come by. In rural areas, hardline Israeli settlers are taking over freshwater springs. And many Palestinians living in West Bank cities say that tap water now flows much less frequently — sometimes just once a month. Amid growing violence and economic pain, it’s one of the less obvious but fundamental ways life has become more difficult for Palestinians in the West Bank in the past year.

The Al-Auja spring isn’t just for cooling off during hot summer days. It’s a vital water source to the nearby Palestinian towns, farms and sheep herders. A few months ago, Israeli settlers established a new outpost just a few hundred feet from it. Such outposts are illegal under both Israeli and international law, but increasingly common in the West Bank, as Israeli authorities turn a blind eye — or in some cases, urge settlers to claim more land.

“I think within a year, [Al-Auja] might be just totally off-limits to Palestinians,” says Sarit Michaeli, head of international advocacy for B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization that tracks abuses in the West Bank.

Michaeli visits the al-Auja spring often. In the weeks since NPR was there in July, she says settlers have encroached even further.

Settlers taking over water sources isn’t a new phenomenon, but it has increased dramatically since the war began. Dozens of new settler outposts like the one near Al-Auja have been built since then, often near or around natural water sources traditionally used by Palestinians.

And, Michaeli says, it’s not random.

“It’s done deliberately in order to take over land,” she says. “The settlers talk about it openly. They make videos about it. None of it is a secret. It’s done with support, both financial support and also security support of all aspects, all parts of the Israeli government and Israeli authorities.”

Israeli policy in the West Bank — bolstered by ultranationalist lawmakers who have become powerful in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — encourages the expansion of illegal settlements, and instructs the Israeli police and military to protect them.

In the town of Mazra’a al Gharbieh, 70-year-old Samhan Shreiteh says that for as long as he can remember, every morning, he would go to the water spring nearby to collect water for his family. But last Oct. 8, the day after the war started, he was met at the spring by settlers carrying guns.

“They approached me, they pointed the guns at me, and they said, ‘Either you leave now or we’ll shoot,’” he remembers.

Shreiteh says he thought they would kill him. He hasn’t been back since — but he gets close enough to see they’re still there, guarding the water.

Losing access to the nearby spring meant Shreiteh’s household of 10 now has to rely on water that flows through their taps at home — something that was already unreliable before Oct. 7 due to persistent water shortages, but now has become even more so.

On this day, the taps are dry. He says there hasn’t been water for 20 days. So Shreiteh has to buy water from a water delivery service — something he’s never had to do before — which the family stores in tanks and buckets outside the house. For this service, he says he’s paying five times as much for water as he was before Oct. 7.

He and his family ration water now. They do laundry only once a week, take very limited showers, wash dishes in a big batch at the end of the day, and water their garden only enough to keep it alive.

“I used to work in the garden all day, I would water it every single day,” he says, standing between rows of olive and lemon trees behind the house. “But now I sit at home. I only water it once a week, and only if we can afford it.”

In the distance on a hilltop is the established Israeli settlement of Harshan. The steady hammer of construction floats through the air.

“Look, they’re building, and we can’t even access our land,” Shreiteh says and points. “And they have water 24 hours a day.”

In the established Israeli settlements — legal according to Israel, but still illegal under international law — the taps don’t run dry. That’s largely because they’re connected to the Israeli water grid. Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank are not.

Interim peace accords in the 1990s — which were only supposed to last five years, but are still in effect today — gave Israel control over 80% of the West Bank’s water reserves.

The allocations in those agreements, which haven’t changed in 30 years, just aren’t enough water for the Palestinians, especially as the occupied West Bank population has nearly doubled since they were signed. Meanwhile, Israel has managed to build a water surplus become a water superpower, due to good planning and investment in desalination technology.

So to make up the difference between water the West Bank has and water it needs, the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, is forced to purchase water from Mekorot, the national Israeli water company, at several times the cost.

Palestinians also need Israel’s permission for virtually any building or maintenance in much of the West Bank, meaning that the Palestinian Authority cannot build a cohesive water grid to allow water-rich areas to easily share with water-poor ones — or even complete less complicated tasks, like repairing leaky pipes.

All of this has caused a major disparity: A study published by B’Tselem last year found that Israelis, including those living in settlements in the West Bank, on average used 247 liters [65 gallons] of water per day per person — three times as much as the 82.4 liters [22 gallons] used per Palestinian in the West Bank.

That same study found that nearly all Israelis, including those in settlements, have running water every day, while only about a third of Palestinians in the West Bank do.

But since Oct. 7, Palestinians say it’s gotten worse.

“What we feel is that of course there is much less water. That’s a fact, and we know it,” says Dr. Ayman Rabi, executive director of the Palestinian Hydrology Group, an independent organization focused on water access in the West Bank and Gaza.

Water officials across the West Bank estimate that water has been cut by around 35% since Oct. 7. But Rabi says it’s hard to know why.

“How is this decision made and what are the grounds for this kind of shortage and cut? Unfortunately, it’s really hard to tell. The policy is unclear. But of course, the Palestinians have to suffer from it,” Rabi says.

Mekorot, the Israeli water company that supplies much of the water to the West Bank, has said it provides water in alignment with the Oslo accords from the 1990s, and directed NPR to the Israeli agency in charge of Palestinian affairs to respond to specific questions about water access in the West Bank. That agency, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories or COGAT, denies any reduction in water flow since Oct. 7, placing the blame for shortages on the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinian Water Authority says Israel has been prioritizing Israeli settlements and reducing the amount of water for the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, throughout the West Bank, Palestinians are increasingly thirsty.

In Ramallah, one of the biggest cities, almost every building has big plastic tanks on the roof — a way to store water when it does flow to use when it doesn’t.

Samer Shini sells those water tanks in Ramallah. On the day NPR visits, he’s receiving a new shipment of 10. Shini says they’ll sell in less than an hour.

Sure enough, it only takes a few minutes before Abdel Jawad Ewais walks in and buys three to add to the two tanks he already has at home. Ewais, a resident of nearby El-Bireh, says two were enough in past years, but this year, the water comes so infrequently he needs more.

“This year is much worse. Yeah. This year, you know, once a week, we get the water — three, four hours. And that’s it,” says Ewais, who is Palestinian American, born and raised in Cleveland. “After October 7, the water decreased a lot, you know — not just for me, but for everybody. The whole neighborhood.”

Ewais notes it’s not just these tanks he has to buy to make up for it. He’s also bought a pump and other infrastructure to get the water to flow in his home. All in all, he estimates it has cost him about $1,000 just this year.

“Fortunately I can afford this stuff, because many other people can’t,” he says.

In downtown Ramallah, shopkeeper Adham Nasser sits outside his small store selling elaborately decorated awnings. He lives in a village outside of town and he says his family hasn’t had running water in over a month.

He says they have to buy bottled water for all their water needs, including bathing. It’s unsustainable for him.

When asked what he’ll do if water doesn’t flow soon, he replies: “We will wait for God’s relief.”

Nasser worries that in the future there will be no running water for them at all.

“But people are dying in Gaza,” he says with a sigh. “So, let them cut our water.”

It’s a sentiment you hear often from Palestinians in the West Bank since the war began: As difficult as life gets, at least it’s not Gaza.

Nuha Musleh contributed to this report from the West Bank. Itay Stern contributed from Tel Aviv.