LONDON: Israeli forces demolished a Palestinian-owned artesian water well on Wednesday in the Tubas Governorate in the northeastern area of the West Bank, according to local officials.
The well, in the Ras Al-Ahmar and Atouf area, belonged to Saleh Naji Bani Odeh, said Mutaz Bisharat, a Tubas official responsible for the Jordan Valley.
He said the same well had been damaged two weeks earlier when its pump and electrical panel were vandalized and a booster unit confiscated, leaving it out of service.
“Today, Israeli forces are carrying out the destruction of the well, which is located in land classified as Area B,” Bisharat told Arab News, adding that bulldozers were still operating at the site.
Area B of the West Bank is under Palestinian civil administration, with security controlled by Israel, and makes up about 22 percent of the territory, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
Separately, Abdullah Bisharat, head of the Atouf and Ras Al-Ahmar village council, told the Palestinian news agency WAFA that Israeli forces damaged the pumps and electrical panels of the same well, along with two others in the area, two weeks ago.
All three wells have since stopped functioning.
He said the wells supplied water to about 7.5 sq. km of farmland in the Al-Baqi’a Plain, one of the most fertile areas in the West Bank, where farmers used to grow bananas, grapes, olives and potatoes.
Without water, crops have begun to wither.
The latest demolition comes amid broader agricultural disruption in the area. Since January, Israeli bulldozers have uprooted trees and crops across land in the Al-Baqi’a and Atouf plains, WAFA reported, and damaged key irrigation pipelines.
The damage has led to water cuts affecting about 30 sq. km — roughly one-third of the Al-Baqi’a Plain — contributing to widespread crop losses.
Local officials and activists link the destruction to a wider Israeli infrastructure project known as the “Crimson Thread.”
Announced in 2025, the plan includes a trench and military road stretching about 22 km between the Ein Shibli and Tayasir checkpoints, effectively separating parts of the northern Jordan Valley from nearby Palestinian cities.
Israel says the barrier is intended to prevent the smuggling of weapons from Jordan. However, critics say the route runs several kilometers inside the West Bank rather than along the Jordanian border and serves to consolidate control over land.
“It is happening all through the Jordan Valley, especially in the north,” Israeli activist Dror Etkes, founder of the Kerem Navot organization, told The Guardian last year. “Israel is pushing forward and accelerating the ethnic cleansing of this area.”
Lawyers for the Atouf village council have appealed the project, though residents say past experience has left them with little confidence in Israeli courts, The Guardian reported on Dec. 13, 2025.
The barrier is ultimately expected to extend up to 500 km, potentially cutting Palestinians off from thousands of hectares of land, according to media reports.
More broadly, attacks on water infrastructure in the Palestinian territories have increased in recent years. The Pacific Institute, a California-based nonpartisan think tank, says Israeli forces and settlers have targeted Palestinian water sources more than 250 times over five years.
Between January 2024 and mid-2025 alone, the group documented at least 90 incidents involving damage to drinking water, irrigation and sanitation systems in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, using methods that included explosives, heavy machinery and other means.
