Long neglected by the municipality, Kufr ‘Aqab residents now receive only a few hours of water a week — and the authorities refuse to help.

Despite the fact that the majority of the neighborhood is officially part of Jerusalem, Kufr ‘Aqab doesn’t receive water from the municipal water supplier, Hagihon. Instead, like Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank, water is provided by the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) — an arm of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) — which purchases it from the Israeli national water company, Mekorot.

This is symptomatic of Israel’s system of water apartheid in the occupied territories: Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are denied control of the aquifers under their feet, and must instead buy the water back in limited quantities from Israel. While Israelis have access to an average of 300 liters of water per day, Palestinians in the West Bank enjoy only 80 liters — 20 liters less than the World Health Organization’s recommended daily quantity. For Palestinians in Gaza, it is currently as low as 3 liters.