Illegal Israeli settlers on Saturday cut off water lines to a Palestinian Bedouin community in Jericho, eastern occupied West Bank, an official said.
Hassan Mleihat, coordinator of the al-Baydar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, said “a group of Israeli colonists cut water pipelines on Saturday evening that supply drinking water to Palestinian homes in the village of Al-Auja, north of Jericho in the occupied West Bank, according to local sources,” the Wafa news agency reported.
In a statement, Mleihat said the illegal settlers “drove provocatively through the area in their vehicles before deliberately cutting pipes that transport water from the Al-Auja spring to residents’ homes.”
He said “the attack is part of a broader, systematic campaign aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinian residents from their land,” describing it as a “deliberate escalation in efforts to empty the region of its Indigenous population.”
According to data from the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a governmental body, settlers carried out 860 attacks against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank during the first three months of 2025, including raids on Palestinian cities and communities, assaults on properties, land bulldozing, and other violations.
Tension has been high in the occupied West Bank, and at least 957 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 others injured since the start of Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, according to Palestinian figures.
Last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land illegal and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.