"How one Israeli company controls – and cuts off – Palestinians’ access to water in the West Bank" July 2025

For 100 days, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank town of Idna have been surviving without running water...

The town’s water crisis was provoked by the April decision of Israeli national water company Mekorot to reduce the daily provision of water to the Hebron governorate of the southern West Bank. The water supply shrank from 32,000 cubic meters to 26,000, which included completely shutting down Mekorot’s water line for Idna....

Every summer, multiple parts of the West Bank experience prolonged water cuts that can extend for up to a month, mainly due to the lack of water supply by Mekorot, which controls most of the water resources in Palestine....

Mekorot was established in the 1930s under the British Mandate. After the establishment of the State of Israel, the company was given the exclusive right to explore and exploit water in the country. After 1967, that included the lands of the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel occupied....

According to the Palestinian Hydrology Group, Palestinians consume an average of 70 liters of water per person per day, while Israelis consume 300. For Israeli settlers in the West Bank, however, the average rises to 800 liters per person a day...

Under international law, both Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Israel’s exploitation of the West Bank’s water are illegal...