“People know about land grabs, they know about demolitions,” said Jeff Halper, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, “but they know less about the water issue, including what’s called ‘the water grab.’”
Halper was speaking at a March 17 online film salon, “Israeli Apartheid in Action: Water Control,” organized by Voices From the Holy Land. The panelists explored how Israel uses water as a weapon of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and “slow genocide” in Gaza.
As described in a 2023 report by panelist Eyal Hareuveni, researcher at the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, Israel maintains near-complete control over the region’s freshwater aquifers, severely restricting Palestinians’ ability to drill wells, install pumps, build water tanks, access piped water and even collect rainwater.
The average Israeli consumes over three times the amount of water used by Palestinians on the water grid in the West Bank, and nine times the water used by West Bank Palestinians who do not have access to piped water. Nearly all Israeli citizens inside the 1948 boundaries and in settlements have running water, compared to just 36 percent of West Bank Palestinians.
Meanwhile, according to the United Nations, Gazans are now consuming less than three liters of water per day, hardly enough for survival, and Israel’s current bombardment of the Gaza Strip has rendered much of its water infrastructure (such as pumping stations and wastewater treatment facilities) inoperable.