Israeli expropriation of Palestinian springs in the West Bank

Until 1950, when Jordan claimed the West Bank by annexation – a move not recognized by the international community – most Palestinian villages drew the majority of their water from springs and by collecting rainwater.

[9] The state-owned Israeli company Mekorot taps springs and drills wells in the West Bank and furnishes settlements with water for all purposes, industrial, agricultural and domestic.

[10] In the process of establishing Israeli settlements, many of these springs were targeted by the settlers, and the struggle to wrest possession of the areas of the landscape that feature them was, and remains, a notable source of conflict between local Palestinians and the immigrant Jewish communities.

[11][12] In a survey conducted in 2011, the United Nation's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory identified 56 springs that had either been taken over by settlers (30), or were the object of targeting for eventual inclusion into the settlement areas (26).

[13][f] One technique relies on the practice by the IDF of declaring large areas of West Bank land military fire zones where (Palestinian) civilians may not enter.

The six settler Regional Councils in the West Bank are supposed to operate under a military ordinance regulating their activities within defined municipal boundaries, but, according to Haaretz's Yotam Berger the civil/military administration turns a blind eye to the phenomenon or even encourages the settler groups to develop infrastructure on lands beyond their municipal jurisdiction that are otherwise closed military zones or private Palestinian property.

[19] Three members of the Shnerb family, from Lod in Israel, were hiking in the West Bank when a bomb planted at Ein Bubin was made to explode, killing the girl, and injuring her brother and father.

[22] The murder took place near to the Palestinian village of Deir Ibzi,[23] whose lower lands near the spring area are abandoned because they are denied access save for two or three days a year.

[k] According to Amira Hass, the site is one of nine in an area where, over three decades, the settlements of Dolev and Nahliel, and illegal Israeli outposts between them, have seized control over some 3,700 acres (1,500 ha) of Palestinian land.

Palestinians in six adjacent villages, Kobar, Ras Karkar, Al-Janiya, Deir 'Ammar, Al-Mazra'a al-Qibliya and Beitillu – all cut off from each other through prohibitions on road use – have been denied access to their groves, springs and grazing land by a variety of settler and army measures – vandalism of trees, military orders, and assaults.

Individual settlements are turned into broad blocs, for Jews only, and are boasting of abundance, serenity, commercial centers, vineyards, orchards, hiking trails and Judaized natural springs.