No life without water: attacks threaten communities

FROM his monitoring station on a remote hill in the occupied West Bank, water operator Subhil Olayan keeps watch over a lifeline for Palestinians, the Ein Samiyah spring.

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So when Israeli settlers recently attacked the system of wells, pumps and pipelines he oversees, he knew the stakes.

“There is no life without water, of course’, he said, following the attack which temporarily cut off the water supply to nearby villages.

The spring, which feeds the pumping station, is the main or backup water source for some 110 000 people, according to the Palestinian company that manages it - making it one of the most vital in the West Bank, where water is in chronic short supply.

The attack is one of several recent incidents in which settlers have been accused of damaging, diverting or seizing control of Palestinian water sources.

“The settlers came and the first thing they did was break the pipeline. And when the pipeline is broken, we automatically have to stop pumping” water to nearby villages, some of which exclusively rely on the Ein Samiyah spring.

“The water just goes into the dirt, into the ground,” Olayan told AFP, adding that workers immediately fixed the damage to resume water supply.