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This article was originally published in Mondoweiss.

Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, in the south Hebron hills, are facing repeated water cuts after Israeli settlers damaged infrastructure supplying water to families in the area. According to Hebron’s governor Khaled Dudin, this attack follows a persistent pattern of settlers directly targeting the water supply, now for the fifth time.

Masafer Yatta is a 36-square-kilometer semi-desertic hilly area in the South Hebron region of the occupied West Bank. It directly overlooks the Naqab desert and extends west to the edge of the Dead Sea Valley. The hills are adjacent to the 1949 Armistice line, known today as the Green Line and viewed internationally as the borders of Israel proper. This strategic location makes it crucial for urban and agricultural growth south of the West Bank. For Israel, Masafer Yatta is treated as a buffer zone separating Israel proper from the deeper Palestinian demographic presence — a zone that needs to be emptied of Palestinians.

Last Saturday, during a field visit to Masafer Yatta, governor Dudin told the media that 1,600 Palestinian families within these 14 Palestinian hamlets are facing difficult living conditions due to damaged water lines, with families forced to rely on water tanks. Dudin also pointed out that water lines had been previously rehabilitated with the support of international organizations.

The Israeli settlers’ attacks on Palestinians’ means of life in Masafer Yatta has been ongoing since before October 2023, but has escalated in the past three years, and particularly in the past weeks. Sami Hureini, local activist and resident, told Mondoweiss that “the villages of Masafer Yatta have come under a relentless wave of attacks by settler groups, but also of demolitions by the Israeli army itself.”

Hureini said that there is no real infrastructure for services in Masafer Yatta, because the Israeli army doesn’t allow it. “In the past years, the communities were able to extend one water line from the edge of the zone where the Israeli army imposes strict control, and reached all 14 villages,” Hureini said. “But Israeli settlers kept damaging it, and sometimes the Israeli army bulldozed it.”

Israel Damaged 82 Percent of Gaza’s Buildings. Collapses Are Burying Us Alive.

The main water line in the area was extended in 2018. It was first cut by the Israeli army’s civil administration in 2019, but was fixed by the joint municipality of Masafer Yatta. It was then partially damaged by Israeli settlers and fixed again multiple times.

In January, the Israeli army cut it again, and since then, it was damaged five times by Israeli settlers or........

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