The slow environmental destruction of the West Bank

Kuwait Times

3 days ago

The slow environmental destruction of the West Bank
By Samia Alduaij
In the last 19 months, the world's attention has been rightly focused on Gaza, however, the slow suffocation of the West Bank is becoming an insidious form of environmental warfare — waged not only through bullets and bulldozers but through policy, settlement expansion and the systemic theft of natural resources. This slow, methodical form of destruction is often obscured by legal jargon and bureaucratic language, but its long-term impact is equally devastating.
Water access is a prime example of environmental apartheid. While Israeli settlers in the West Bank enjoy uninterrupted water access — averaging 300 liters per person per day — Palestinians in the same region receive only 73 liters on average. In some communities, water is available just a few hours a week. Palestinians are forbidden from digging their own wells, and rainwater harvesting is criminalized. Water springs have been seized by Israeli settlements, cutting Palestinian communities off from natural sources they've used for centuries.
In Jerusalem, the disparity is just as stark. Jewish residents receive water 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In contrast, areas of East Jerusalem, home to Palestinian families, receive water only 1-2 days per week — or sometimes for just 4-9 hours per week. This artificial scarcity has ripple effects on health and agriculture. In Gaza, 26 percent of diseases were waterborne before the recent war, and the same threats loom over West Bank communities as aquifers are contaminated and over-extracted, further degrading water quality.
Settler violence compounds this structural violence. In Masafer Yatta — a cluster of villages in the South Hebron Hills made famous by the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land — settlers have reportedly polluted Palestinian water wells by dumping dead goat calves into them. This not only endangers public health and livestock but also terrorizes communities relying on those sources. In other parts of the West Bank, settlers have released wild boars into Palestinian farmland, destroying crops and deterring farmers from working their land.
Sewage dumping from Israeli settlements is another form of ecological sabotage. In many areas, untreated wastewater flows directly onto Palestinian agricultural plots, poisoning the soil and rendering it unfit for cultivation. Over time, these toxins accumulate in the food chain, threatening both livelihoods and long-term public health.
Perhaps most symbolic of this environmental violence is the systematic destruction of olive trees. Since 1967, over two million olive trees — some of them thousands of years old — have been uprooted by Israeli authorities and settlers. Olive trees are not just agricultural assets; they are symbols of Palestinian heritage, economic resilience, and spiritual rootedness. Their destruction is an attack on identity and history. Settler attacks on olive groves tend to spike during harvest season, a deliberate tactic to destroy both the yield and the morale of Palestinian farmers.
But the trees resist. Despite repeated attempts to erase them, olive trees have shown a remarkable ability to regrow — even in areas overtaken by non-native pine forests planted by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an NGO that has been tasked since the early 20th century with making Palestine look and feel like Europe for the colonial settlers. These afforestation projects are often praised internationally as green initiatives, yet they serve a purpose: Ecological colonization.
Many of these forests, such as the Birya Forest in northern Occupied Palestine, were intentionally planted over the ruins of destroyed Palestinian villages. They dry the land, increase fire risk and disrupt biodiversity. But beneath the layers of imported pine, the roots of ancient olive trees persist, pushing through the soil to reclaim their place. Their reemergence in JNF parks is a quiet form of resistance — a natural refusal to be erased.
The tactics used today echo the horrors of the past. During the 1948 Nakba, Israeli forces reportedly poisoned wells in depopulated Palestinian villages as part of a biological warfare campaign codenamed 'Cast Thy Bread'. Typhoid bacteria were used to contaminate water sources, to prevent Palestinians from returning to their homes. This early form of environmental warfare laid the groundwork for the policies that persist today.
NOTE: Samia Alduaij is an environmental specialist who has worked for the UN and the World Bank. She is one of the founders of Sustainable Living Kuwait, a local initiative that promotes sustainable living solutions.