Palestinian villages 'get two hours of water a week'

Ramallah, occupied West Bank - Enas Taha, a resident of the Palestinian village of Kafr al-Deek in the occupied West Bank, has become desperate.
"Since the [water] crisis started in June, the municipality has been able to supply water for only one hour twice a week," Taha told Al Jazeera. "I am checking the weather forecast every day; they announced rain three weeks ago, but it has not come yet. The only thing I can do is to pray to God."
Many West Bank communities are facing similar problems, amid an acute water shortage that has lasted for months. In the Salfit, Jenin and Hebron governorates, some villages have gone as long as 40 days in a row without running water.
In mid-July, residents in the Bethlehem area staged a sit-in for days to protest against the shortages, sparking clashes between Palestinian youths and Israeli forces.
"It is a very stressful situation. I have to consider and prioritise every single drop of water I use," Taha said. "We have barely enough to drink, cook, shower and use the bathroom. Sometimes I don't do the laundry or clean the house for weeks. It is hot and dusty. This is exhausting."

Some Palestinians have joked that the water bill collector comes to their homes more often than water. As demand rises, the cost of drinking water has skyrocketed, with some families spending up to 30 percent of their meagre incomes to purchase it.
Israel implements a policy of water cuts each summer, but this year, it reached an unprecedented peak. In early June, Israeli water company Mekorot informed the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) of summertime supply cuts totalling more than 50 percent - and the cuts, while not as dramatic, remain in effect today, more than a month after the official end of summer.
"We are in regular contact with [Mekorot] to find a solution, but they constantly give us different excuses, such as the increase in demand, rising temperature, etc," Deeb Abdelghafour, the PWA's director of the water resources department, told Al Jazeera.
The notion that the region is suffering from water scarcity is a myth, he added: "We have been facing shortages for decades, and the reason is not natural, but man-made - meaning the Israeli occupation and Israeli control over water resources in the Palestinian territories."