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For Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, water has been a struggle for years. But since Israel's war with Gaza began in October of last year, it's been even harder to come by. In rural areas, freshwater springs are being taken over by hard-line Israeli settlers, while many Palestinians living in cities say that tap water now flows much less frequently - sometimes just once a month. As NPR's Kat Lonsdorf reports, it is one of the less obvious ways life has become more difficult for Palestinians in the West Bank.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER FLOWING)
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Speaking Arabic).
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: Young boys splash and jump in the Al-Auja spring near Jericho. It's a hot summer day, nearly 100 degrees, and the sun beats off the dusty landscape of the Jordan Valley.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)
LONSDORF: Nearby, 24-year-old Mansour Arara sits with friends in the shade of a tree, keeping an eye on the boys.
MANSOUR ARARA: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: "We were so happy to get here today and not get stopped by the soldiers," he says.
ARARA: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: He says this is the fourth spring they tried today. The other three were blocked by Israeli settlers with the help of the Israeli military. He says they've tried to come to this spring on other days, and Israeli soldiers blocked them...
ARARA: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: ...Telling them that, since October 7, when the Hamas-led attack on Israel sparked the current war in Gaza, they were now forbidden from coming here. Meanwhile, he could see Israeli settlers using it. A few months ago, settlers established a new outpost just a few hundred feet from the spring. It's illegal, under both Israeli and international law, but increasingly common.
SARIT MICHAELI: I think, within a year, it might just be totally off-limits to Palestinians.
LONSDORF: That's Sarit Michaeli of B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization that tracks abuses in the West Bank. She visits the Al-Auja spring often. In the weeks since NPR was there, she says settlers have encroached even further.
The 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. 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.
MICHAELI: It's not some sort of coincidence. It's done deliberately in order to take over land. The settlers talk about it openly. They make videos about it. None of it is a secret. It's done in both financial support and also security support of all aspects - all parts of the Israeli government and Israeli authorities.
LONSDORF: Israeli government 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.
SAMHAN SHREITEH: (Speaking Arabic).
(CROSSTALK)
LONSDORF: Seventy-year-old (ph) Samhan Shreiteh welcomes us into his home in the town of Mazra'a el Gharbieh, on the other side of the West Bank. His daughter pours us water from a plastic bottle.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER POURING)
SHREITEH: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: He tells us that, for as long as he can remember, every morning, he would go to the water spring nearby to get water for his family. But on October 8, the day after the war started...
SHREITEH: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: He says settlers were blocking it. They had guns. They threatened to shoot him.
SHREITEH: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: He says he thought they would kill him. He hasn't been back since, but he gets close enough to see that they're still there, guarding the water.
Losing access to that nearby spring meant Shreiteh's family now has to rely on water from their pipes, something that was already unreliable before October 7 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 he has to buy water from a water delivery service. He shows us how they store it in tanks and buckets outside the house.
(SOUNDBITE OF BUCKET BANGING)
LONSDORF: He says he's paying five times as much for water as he did before October 7. And they ration water like never before - laundry only once a week, limited showers and cleaning, watering the garden only when necessary. In the distance is the established Israeli settlement of Harshan.
(SOUNDBITE OF CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT BANGING)
LONSDORF: You can hear the steady hammer of construction as it's being expanded. Shreiteh points.
SHREITEH: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: "Look. They're building, and we can't even access our land," he says.
SHREITEH: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: "And they have water 24 hours a day," he adds.
In the established Israeli settlements, also illegal under international law, the taps don't run dry. That's largely because they're connected into the Israeli water grid. Palestinian cities and towns are not. Interim peace accords back 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 and the agreements just aren't enough water for the Palestinians, especially as the population has nearly doubled in the past 30 years. This forces the Palestinian Authority to purchase water from Israel. And Palestinians need Israel's permission for virtually any building, meaning that the Palestinian Authority cannot build a cohesive water grid in the West Bank or even repair leaky pipelines. All of this has caused a major disparity.
A study published by B'Tselem last year found that Israeli settlers, on average, use three times as much water as Palestinians in the West Bank. But since October 7, Palestinians say it's gotten worse.
AYMAN RABI: What we feel is, of course, yes, there is much less water. That's a fact. We know and we feel it.
LONSDORF: Ayman Rabi is the executive director of the Palestinian Hydrology Group, an independent organization focused on water access in the West Bank. Water officials across the West Bank estimate that the water has been cut on average 35% since October 7. But Rabi says it's hard to know why.
RABI: What is the ground of this kind of shortage and cut? It's difficult to say.
LONSDORF: The Palestinian Water Authority says Israel has been prioritizing Israeli settlements and reducing the amount of water for the Palestinians. The Israeli agency in charge of Palestinian affairs has denied any reduction in water flow, placing the blame on the Palestinian authority.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR HORN BEEPING)
LONSDORF: But throughout the West Bank, Palestinians are increasingly thirsty. In Ramallah, the biggest city, 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.
SAMIR AL-SHANEE: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: Samir al-Shanee sells those water tanks in Ramallah.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER TANKS BANGING)
LONSDORF: On the day we visit, he's getting a new shipment of 10 delivered.
AL-SHANEE: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: He says, "they'll sell in less than an hour."
And sure enough...
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR OPENING)
LONSDORF: ...Abdel Jawad Ewais walks in and buys three. He already has two tanks at home. That was enough in past years. But this year, he needs more. The water comes so infrequently.
ABDEL JAWAD EWAIS: Oh, yeah, this year is much worse. Yeah. This year, you know, once a week, we get the water - you know, three, four hours, and that's it.
LONSDORF: Ewais is Palestinian American, born and raised in Cleveland, but he moved back here with his kids in 2013.
EWAIS: Definitely, after October 7, the water decreased a lot. You know, we noticed that. You know, not just me - everybody, the whole neighborhood, you know?
LONSDORF: It's not just the tanks he has to buy to make up for it. He's bought a pump and other infrastructure. It costs a lot.
EWAIS: At least a thousand dollars.
LONSDORF: He says he's lucky he can afford it. He knows a lot of people here can't.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORNS BEEPING)
ADHAM NASSER: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: Adham Nasser owns a shop in downtown Ramallah, selling awnings. He lives in a village outside of town. His family hasn't had running water in one month, he says. I ask him, what does he do?
NASSER: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: "We wait for God's relief," he says.
He worries that, in the future, there will be no water for them at all. And then...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Arabic).
NASSER: (Speaking Arabic).
LONSDORF: "But people are dying in Gaza," he says, "so let them cut our water."
That's a sentiment you hear a lot from Palestinians in the West Bank since the war began. As difficult as life gets, at least it's not Gaza.
Kat Lonsdorf, NPR News, Ramallah.
(SOUNDBITE OF VICTOR RAY SONG, "FALLING INTO PLACE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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