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The city of Salfit itself is pretty small, with a population of just 9,750 inhabitants, while the governorate in total holds a population of 70,000 inhabitants.  The town is located in the central West Bank, on one side of a long valley, midway between Nablus and Ramallah.

Agriculture is an important sector of Salfit’s economy, especially the cultivation of the local olives and grapes, as well as almond and apple orchards.  This gives to the landscape a character typical of the West Bank, with sweeping fields divided only by small stone walls.

Salfit is one of the cities of the northern West Bank most affected by the presence of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).  Ariel, the largest settlement in the West Bank—in addition to a further 16 settlements—are built on Salfit land, with a total population of some 40,000 Israeli settlers.

The presence of these settlements affect the area not just through the stealing of land to build the settlement itself, but also by the path of the Separation Wall, built to “secure” the settlements from the local Palestinian population.  In the Salfit area, the Wall snakes within Palestinian territory for over 15 kilometres.
 

The enclaves that the Wall separates from the Palestinian territories include the settlement of Ariel, in addition to the industrial zones of Barkan and Ale Zahav. 

The city of Salfit, however, is also located in the most water rich region of the entire West Bank; water was never a problem for the population of the area before the arrival of the settlers. 

But everything changed with the establishment of the settlement following the 1967 war. Sixteen artesian wells have been confiscated during the years since, and water supplies have been redirected, miles away, in order to serve Israel, and to supply the wells of the settlers of Ariel. 

The Israelis and the settlers consume five times as much water as the local Palestinians, yet the Palestinian pay 300 percent more for their supply.  The nearby villages of Kifr al-Dik and Bruqin are constantly without enough water, and often without water at all, as resources are used by the settlers. 

The road leading to the two villages is not paved; it is full of holes and winding curves.  The former main road leads from the north of the governorate, but is now inside the “security” area, taken by Israel, under control of the Israeli military, and reserved for use by settlers living there.

The only available road for Palestinians now is this unpaved road that winds through the agricultural area of Salfit for almost 15 kilometres, adding at least 20-30 minutes to journey times and yet another frustration to daily life.  Travelling on the former road, it took no less than five minutes to arrive from the city to the two villages. 

It is precisely when going along this road that it becomes clear what is wrong.  It is the smell: a horrible smell of waste water.  This sensation is confirmed when looking to the right of the road. There is something, which at first glance, seems to be a river.  And it is a river, but not a natural river of water coming up from the numerous underground water-bearing stratums, of which Salfit District is full.  This is a river of wastewater, coming directly from the settlement of Ariel and the industrial zone of Barkan. 

For the past nine years, the municipality has been trying to build a waste-water treatment plant to service the residents of Salfit.  The plant was supposed to be built on Salfit Governorate land, 13 km from the city of Salfit itself. 

The municipality received a grant of €22 million from the German government to build the plant, and a mainline pipe to the town, but the Israeli military halted the construction and seized the equipment, as it would allegedly interfere with Israel's nearby Jewish-only settlements.  The equipment was eventually returned some 18 months later.

 
As a result, the municipality had to take out a loan to buy a new piece of land, eight kilometres closer to the city, and a further loan of €2 million to relocate the pipes and the power cables. Although Israel approved the site of the new plant, the planned West Bank barrier will separate Salfit from the sewage plant, which will then be up for grabs for confiscation by Israeli settlers.

The situation now, according to UN OCHA, is the following:  Israel has provided a treatment plant for the Ariel settlement, capable of handling 0.95 million cubic meters of waste water each year, while the settlers produce 2.27 million cubic meters of untreated waste water every year, leaving 1.32 million cubit meters of untreated waste water, some 78 percent of its total untreated output, flowing straight into al-Matwi valley.   

This valley, in addition to the Wadi Qana valley, also hosts the 80 factories of the Barkan industrial zone, producing chemicals, plastic and oil, with an output of 0.81 million cubic meters of waste water and industrial effluents per year.  All this waste water, flowing together, has formed a river in the area, gurgling from the settlement of Ariel, all the way back to the green line, passing through agricultural land and the villages of Kifr al-Dik and Bruqin. 

This water, in addition to creating a horrible smell throughout the entire valley, has also contaminated the water spring that provides 25 percent of the potable water of the governorate, located in the same area.  The Palestinian Ministry of Health has warned the population of Salfit District not to use the water, even for farm animals, and has tried to solve the problem by adding yet more chlorine to the water.

As a result, both water pipes in the area, named al-Matwi and Shamiyeh, are contaminated, and the village municipalities must purchase their water from the Israeli company, Mekorot, paying almost five times the price of the local water. 

The problem of the waste water, however, is not only related to potable water and the springs.  In fact, the area where the river has formed is also the only place where local shepherds can bring their animals.  Walking along the road from the city to the villages, it is frequent to see cows, sheep and goats drinking the water of the chemical river and grazing on the grass growing on its banks. 

In addition, as the river meanders through agricultural land, the dry roots of grapes, olive and apple trees are quenched by the waste water that drains through the ground.  As a result, in addition to contaminated water, the population of the area now also has contaminated meat, contaminated milk and contaminated fruits and vegetables. 

The two villages of Kifr al-Dik and Bruqin are impoverished, small villages.  Their income comes almost exclusively from the land and their animals, now that permits to work in Israel are difficult and rare to obtain.  The fact that the water is contaminated does not make a substantive difference to the behaviour of the population of the villages: the choice that remains is between consuming contaminated food and water, or, having no money with which to buy water or food from outside and starving.  There is little choice in this matter; there is only the necessity of survival. 

According to statistics of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the result of this situation is that some 70 percent of people with cancer in the Salfit district are from the area near the industrial zone and river of Israeli waste.  In addition, there are a number of cases of infectious skin disease, due to the large concentration of mosquitoes in the vicinity of the factories, and in places where the waste they produce is dumped.  There have also been a number of documented cases of an infectious disease which causes problems in the blood, in addition to high levels of both Hepatitis A and B in the population. Finally, the poisonous streams have led to the death and ruin of trees and crops located in their immediate vicinity. 

The primary winner in this situation is Mekorot, an Israeli company, the only company that sells water to the OPT.  Another Israeli benefit is that, having stolen the Palestinian water, the settlements don’t have to buy it, and don’t even have to pay for expensive treatment for the waste water they produce.  Furthermore, the chemical and environmentally dangerous factories in Israel have now found a place were they can continue their work—on occupied Palestinian land, where there are no rules to follow, as Israeli laws are not enforced in the OPT. 

The occupation the Palestinian territories removes not only the freedom of the Palestinians, or the land, but also the air, the water and the food.  The existence of something called “fundamental human rights” in this place is only assumed in the shape of a dream, while the occupation is revealing its face, the face of a business worth millions of shekels.  This seems to be a much more likely explanation for the ongoing expansion of the settlement policy within the ongoing military occupation than any religious justification so far offered.