On four occasions over the past month Israeli settlers have vandalized the infrastructure providing water from the Ein Samiyah spring near Ramallah to the pumping station serving 110,000 Palestinians in the West Bank. Eighteen villages rely entirely on Ein Samiyah for their water and a further 14 others get part of their water from the spring. The settlers have repeatedly broken the pumps and pipelines, and damaged the five wells fed by the spring which are operated by Jerusalem Water Undertaking. Maintenance crews have been attacked by settlers when they attempt to repair the damage. There has been no intervention by the army to prevent the attacks, or to stop the settlers from swimming in a pool fed by the spring which they have renamed ’Shepherds Spring.’
Settlers have reportedly established a crowdfunding campaign to finance their take over of Palestinian water sources which they see as paving the way to the annexation of the West Bank. In the words of Issa Qassis, the Palestinian chair of the board of Jerusalem Water Undertaking, “in a plan to move people to other lands, water is the best and fastest way."
