One of the methods the Israeli army has used to force Palestinian farmers off their land is to sal off their water wells and natural springs with concrete. It appears indifferent to the ecological implications of its actions in a region which, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “is slated to be disproportionately affected by climate change.”
Carnegie’s report issued on May 14, 2026 outlines Palestinian efforts to design a national strategy for climate change when faced with the constraints of barriers, walls and checkpoints barring access to land, lack of control over resources and inability to expand the water, wastewater and electricity infrastructure. A description of the context in which they are operating is worth quoting at length:
“The outlook for climate adaptation in Palestine is alarming. Today, only one in ten Gazans has access to potable water, and in the West Bank, 42 percent of the population is living under extreme vulnerability to climate effects. Combined with trends of reduced precipitation and increased emissions that severely weaken Palestine’s water and food systems, the ongoing Israeli occupation further complicates Palestine’s recovery and, far more, the possibility of a sustainable recovery that equally benefits Palestinians and Israelis. Any water management rights allotted to Palestine in the Oslo Accords are essentially negated by Israel’s veto power, consequently allowing for Israel to overabstract water resources and further limiting Palestine’s water availability and quality. Israel controls over 80 percent of the water resources in Palestine that originate from the Mountain Aquifer and the Jordan Valley, which Palestine has no access to despite bordering the Jordan Valley and Mediterranean Sea. UN projections show that climate change coupled with human activities—including urbanization, population growth, and contamination of water and soil due to Isarel’s war in Gaza—will significantly disrupt Palestine’s water, energy, agricultural, and health sectors well beyond existing shortcomings. Furthermore, as a result of climate impacts and absent legal oversight on Israel’s overabstraction, the rate of water renewal—how fast water resources are replenished, through methods like runoff and rainfall—has decreased, not only for the water resources Palestine currently accesses but also across the surrounding region.”
Water-starved Jordan is meanwhile having to deal with Israel’s use of water as a foreign policy tool. In a 1994 treaty between Israel and Jordan, Israel agreed to provide its neighbor with 50 million cubic meters of subsidized water annually. That amount was doubled in 2021 through commercial water sales in an agreement ending in late 2025, which Jordan is now trying to renew. On July 12, 2026 The Times of Israelreported that Israel was reluctant to renew it because relations between the countries had chilled after the Gaza war, and that Israel has “reportedly conditioned the supply of the additional volume on Jordan moderating its relations towards Israel and restoring full diplomatic ties.”
