Far-right settlers divert West Bank spring water as Israel backs
heritage site takeovers
[September 26, 2026]
By MELANIE LIDMAN and JALAL BWAITEL
PETZAEL, West Bank (AP) — The natural springs and ancient pools of the
occupied West Bank have long provided a respite from the oppressive
summer heat. They also have been a lifeline for Palestinian communities,
which rely on them for tourism and irrigation for their farmland.
But for the 2.8 million Palestinians who live in the territory, those
springs and the stone reservoirs they fill are increasingly out of reach
as Israeli settlers — encouraged by a hard-line government facing
reelection — have stepped up efforts both to seize the springs and other
heritage sites.
In one case this summer, water from a natural spring to the Palestinian
village of Fasayil was illegally diverted to an ancient pool nearby.
Whoever siphoned the water used it to fill up that pool, declaring it a
new tourist attraction named after Herod, the Roman-appointed king of
Judea.
Agreements reached in the 1990s indicate the pool is located in Area C,
meaning it is under full Israeli military control. Research by Dror
Etkes, who runs the settlement watchdog group Kerem Navot, determined
the land was privately owned.
Palestinian farmer Saad Nemer, from Fasayil, said the water being cut
off has devastated his fields, adding that his family has documents that
prove ownership of the land. COGAT, Israel’s military body that oversees
civil issues in the West Bank, acknowledged the water was diverted
“without authorization” and said it would investigate.
Other swimming areas in the West Bank have also become sites of
conflict. An Israeli father of six was shot and killed last week by a
Palestinian at a spring in the northern West Bank, where he was bathing
with his oldest son ahead of the Yom Kippur holiday.
Israel funds Jewish heritage projects in the West Bank
Israel has occupied the West Bank since it captured the territory, along
with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, from Jordan and Egypt in the
1967 war. Since then, it has built a network of settlements for more
than half a million Israelis on land Palestinians seek for a future
independent state.
The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements
illegal. Earlier this month, during a rise in settler violence and other
actions that have displaced Palestinians, the British government accused
Israel of turning “a blind eye” to what it described as “ethnic
cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank — perpetrated by
settler terrorists.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the violence but blamed
it on a “handful of rioters” in the occupied West Bank he said do
injustice to the “law-abiding settler public.”
The push to take over and claim heritage sites is part of this wider
effort, according to Israeli rights group B'Tselem, which said in a
report this month that such designations are used to “elevate the
historical, cultural, and religious ties of the State of Israel and the
Jewish people to the West Bank.”
The decision by settlers to name the pool near Fasayil after Herod was
an attempt to “brand” the site as part of Jewish history, said Alon
Arad, executive director of Emek Shaveh, an Israeli group that opposes
the politicization of archaeology in Israel and the Palestinian
territories.
Archaeologists have never studied the site, so it's unclear when it was
built. Other ruins in the area date to Herod's reign in the first
century B.C.E., according to excavations conducted by the archaeology
unit of Israel’s Civil Administration, a branch of the military that
manages day-to-day affairs in the West Bank.
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A child climbs on a metal Star of David structure at a spring in
Auja, in the Jordan Valley, during Israel's Independence Day on
April 22, 2026, in the occupied West Bank. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
At the beginning of October, after the Jewish holidays, the pool
will be drained so that the administration’s archaeologists can
complete a full survey of the site, Heritage Minister Amichai
Eliyahu said in an interview with The Associated Press.
He praised the group that originally diverted the water and said
about $1 million has been earmarked by the government to
rehabilitate the site. That is out of at least $166 million he said
is now allocated for excavations and infrastructure at more than 100
sites he claimed are connected to Jewish heritage in the West Bank.
“We’ll turn this place into the Garden of Eden,” Eliyahu said during
a visit to the pool, which is near the Petzael settlement.
There is “no such thing as a Palestinian nation” he added, before
leaping into the water.
Fields dry up as water is seized
The struggle for water access in this strip of fertile land reflects
a wider contest for control of the West Bank, and in particular the
Jordan Valley, which Palestinians consider the breadbasket of their
hoped-for future state and Israelis view as key to protecting their
eastern border.
Palestinians have faced water shortages and restrictions since
Israel took control in 1967. Interim peace accords in the 1990s
recognized their water rights but preserved a system that allocated
some 80% of water pumped from the main aquifer for Israeli use.
Now, soaring attacks by settlers are exacerbating the problem.
Settlers have damaged, destroyed or seized approximately 160 water
and sanitation structures, including pipelines and cisterns, in
Palestinian communities in 2026, according to a July report from the
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The attackers are increasingly targeting shared water infrastructure
and have disrupted supply to all or large parts of several
Palestinian communities, the report said.
In Al Auja, in the Jordan Valley, the seizure by settlers of the
local natural springs has forced some Palestinian farmers to abandon
their fields.
Murad al-Juba, 53, once grew an abundance of fruit and vegetables,
including cantaloupes, eggplant, bananas and tomatoes. But after
settlers encroached, harassing residents and diverting the spring
water, he said he has been unable to plant.
“All these farms depend on the spring, but today, the spring is
gone, because the settlers took it,” Juba said.
More recently, “settlers have completely taken over” the spring's
waterfall and turned “the area into a quasi-military zone,” said
mayor Hani al-Njoum, adding it has been devastating for local
tourism and agriculture.
“This land was bountiful,” Juba said. “Today, it is a desert.”
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Bwaitel reported from Al Auja, West Bank.
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