It’s the stench that hits first — a nauseating wave that reveals raw sewage coursing through the Hebron Stream beneath the Jewish settlement of Otniel in the southern West Bank, a riverbed meant to be dry in July.

Its banks are caked in a blinding white crust that allows only the most resilient of plants to survive. The white powder is not natural to the stream; it has entered via the city of Hebron’s sewage pipe network, originating at stone-cutting factories that use large amounts of water to cool lathes that cut Hebron stone — also sometimes known as Jerusalem stone — into slabs for the area’s characteristic building facades, flooring and tiles.

For years, the Palestinian Authority has been building an internationally funded wastewater treatment plant for Hebron. Delays were caused partly by Israeli changes of plan. But even once finished, the facility will sit idle until the stone dust problem is resolved — it would chew the machinery to bits.

For years, the toxic cocktail of raw sewage and marble sludge has flowed beyond the city limits. In winter, floods spill the slurry onto the banks; when the rains stop, it bakes into a concrete-like crust.

Hundreds of thousands of residents from communities not connected to sewage infrastructure add their untreated waste to the current, helping to drive ecological devastation.

Unless the stone sludge is thick enough to seal the stream bed, the filth percolates downward, threatening the Mountain Aquifer — the most critical remaining source of natural sweetwater in the region.

At the Israeli border, a specialized filtration facility strains out the white dust, channeling the remaining raw sewage toward the Shoket wastewater treatment plant. When Shoket overflows, the deluge pours directly into the Beersheba Stream, carving a stinking path through a key municipal park and spreading foul odors to neighborhoods nearby.

A jurisdictional jigsaw

Instead of leading to a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace, as intended, the 1990s Oslo Accords have created a bureaucratic nightmare.

Israel wields civil and security control over 60% of the West Bank — designated during the accords as Area C — home to Jewish settlements, military zones, open and agricultural land, and Palestinian villages. Half of Hebron’s stone-cutting factories operate in Area C, where Israel, through its Civil Administration, holds exclusive planning........

© The Times of Israel