Zionist settlers cut water supply to Palestinians in occupied West Bank

Hassan Mleihat, coordinator of the local anti-settlement organization al-Baydar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA that a group of Israeli settlers drove provocatively through the town of al-Auja, located ten kilometers (six miles) north of Ariha, on Saturday evening.

They then deliberately cut pipes that supply drinking water from the al-Auja spring to residents’ homes.

Mleihat stated, “The attack is part of a broader, systematic campaign aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinian residents from their land.”

He described the assault as a “deliberate escalation in efforts to empty the region of its indigenous population.”

Separately, three family members were attacked by settlers in the southern West Bank.

Palestinian security and local sources said the incident occurred in the town of Sa’ir, where a group of Israeli settlers stopped a car and physically attacked its occupants, using batons and their fists.

The father, identified as 55-year-old Abd al-Fattah Ahmad al-Tarwah, sustained multiple bruises and injuries across his body. His 50-year-old wife suffered a broken arm during the assault, while their son sustained head injuries.

All three were transferred to a nearby hospital for medical treatment.

Moreover, settlers attacked the village of Kobar, northwest of Ramallah in central West Bank, injuring two Palestinians.

Data from the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a governmental body, indicates that settlers carried out 860 assaults on Palestinians and their properties in the West Bank within the first three months of 2025, including incursions into Palestinian cities and communities, attacks on properties, land excavation, and various other violations.

Since the formation of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet in late 2022, there has been a marked increase in assaults by Israeli settlers on Palestinians, especially in the northern flank of the West Bank.

Various attacks on Palestinian property, including arson and graffiti, have become a daily occurrence throughout the occupied territories, particularly in the West Bank.

However, Israeli authorities rarely prosecute the Israeli settler assaults on Palestinians and their property, and the vast majority of the files are closed due to deliberate police failure to investigate properly.

The Israeli military initiated its assault on the occupied West Bank on January 21, stating that the objective was to target the resistance fighters linked to the Jenin Battalion.

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza in October 2023, Zionist troops and settlers have martyred at least 957 Palestinians, and more than 7,000 others were injured in the West Bank.

Last July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared that Zionist regime’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal, demanding the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds.