Headwater Diversion Plan (Jordan River)

[3] The Arab leadership also argued that the increase to Israel's water supply would encourage the immigration of more Jewish settlers, thus reducing the possibility of repatriation for Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war.

Two civil engineering projects were completed successfully; the diversion of water from the Jordan River (1.7 million cubic metres in a day) at Eshed Kinrot (later dubbed Sapir Pumping Station, located at Tel Kinrot/Tell el-' Oreimeh), carried by the Israeli National Water Carrier from 1955 to 1964 and the Jordanian construction of the East Ghor Canal (now known as the King Abdullah Canal) from 1957 to 1966.

[citation needed] In 1964 when Israel's National Water Carrier was nearing completion, the second Arab League summit conference voted on a plan designed to circumvent and frustrate it.

[9][10] Syria began its part of the overall Arab diversion plan with the construction of the Banias to Yarmouk canal in 1965, with financing from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The Hasbani and Banias diversion works would have had the effect of reducing the capacity of the Israeli carrier from the Sea of Galilee by about 35% and Israel's overall water supply by about 11%.

[1] Israel exploited the DMZ incidents as pretexts for bombing the diversion project,[11] culminating in air strikes deep in Syrian territory in April 1967.