Hebron’s sewage crisis flows south toward Negev

ByGABRIEL COLODRO/THE MEDIA LINEJULY 22, 2026 21:00Updated: JULY 22, 2026 21:03The water running through the dry hills south of Hebron is thick, pale in places and difficult to ignore. Along parts of the streambed, the odor arrives before the water is visible.For more stories from The Media Line go to themedialine.orgFrom Hebron, the polluted flow moves south past roads, open land and Israeli communities, reaching Meitar, Shoket Junction and eventually the Beersheba Stream system. Over roughly 43 kilometers, it carries untreated sewage and industrial waste from the stone industry across the jurisdictions established under the Oslo Accords.Most of the sewage originates in Palestinian towns around Hebron, where the Palestinian Authority is responsible for civilian services. It then reaches Area C, where Israel controls planning and security, before crossing the Green Line on its way toward the Negev. The wastewater passes through territory administered by different authorities, but the flow has not been stopped at its source.“The problem with what we call Hebron Valley is not a problem for Har Hebron Regional Council residents only,” Eliram Azulay, head of the Har Hebron Regional Council, told The Media Line. “This problem is a huge problem for Israel.”Azulay places responsibility on the Palestinian Authority, saying sewage from Hebron-area municipalities and wastewater from stone-cutting factories are allowed to flow south without adequate treatment. By the time the pollution reaches Israeli territory, he said, Har Hebron, Meitar, Omer, Bnei Shimon and Beersheba are left to finance its collection and treatment.“You can make kayaks in this sewage,” Azulay said after touring the stream. “And you know, it smells.”He said sediment from stone factories settles along the route, blocks channels and makes nearby land difficult to use.Stone industry particles enter sewage systems without proper treatmentDomestic sewage is only part of the problem. Hebron is a major center for stone cutting and processing, an industry that produces wastewater loaded with fine mineral particles. Barak Werker, chief executive of Green Now, said those particles enter municipal sewage systems without the industrial pretreatment required at regulated factories inside Israel.“The biggest problem in the Hebron Stream is the stone industry in Hebron itself,” Werker told The Media Line. “It releases water containing stone particles, making it impossible to treat the wastewater at its source.”Biological treatment plants are designed to break down organic material, but stone powder instead settles and accumulates, interfering with pumps, pipes and treatment basins. Green Now’s 2024 Cross-Border Pollution report identifies chromium from Hebron’s tanning industry as another contaminant entering the stream alongside stone dust and untreated sewage.Werker said the pollution developed over decades as Hebron’s population and stone industry expanded. He cautioned against treating it as a problem that began with the Oslo Accords or resulted solely from Palestinian neglect.Environmental infrastructure was poor across the region before the agreements, he said, and Israel itself had relatively few advanced wastewater plants in the 1980s. The Oslo period coincided with Israel modernizing its systems while responsibility for Palestinian communities shifted to the newly established Palestinian Authority.That division has worked poorly in a shared watershed. Israeli facilities downstream can reduce some of the damage, but only after the wastewater has passed through communities, agricultural land and open spaces.Green Now estimates that Israeli and Palestinian communities in the West Bank produce about 90 million cubic meters of sewage each year, approximately 80% of it from the Palestinian population. Its report estimates that 38 million cubic meters from Palestinian towns and villages receive no treatment and enter streams, soil, or absorption pits. Roughly 5 million cubic meters of sewage or inadequately treated effluent from Israeli communities also reach the environment, according to the report.Those figures are regional estimates, not measurements limited to the Hebron Stream. The report was edited by Dr. Yeshayahu Bar-Or, a former chief scientist at Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry, and environmental lawyer Shlomo Rabinowitz. It draws on field surveys, drone documentation and previously published government and academic material.The long-term concern is not that residents drink directly from the stream, but that sewage and industrial contaminants could seep through the limestone terrain into the Mountain Aquifer, which supplies water to Israelis and Palestinians. Green Now describes the Western Mountain Aquifer as Israel’s largest and highest-quality groundwater reservoir, with average annual renewable resources of about 360 million cubic meters.Azulay said professionals had warned him about groundwater contamination and the reliability of water sources serving the Negev. His prediction that some supplies could become unusable within several years was not supported by a published Water Authority assessment in the material reviewed by The Media Line. The broader danger of sewage reaching groundwater is addressed in Green Now’s report.The proposed engineering solution begins inside the stone factories.“The right solution is to separate the stone waste at its source in the Hebron area,” Werker said. “After pretreatment, the wastewater should be sent to the large Palestinian treatment plant near Yatta, treated there and reused for irrigation. There is no justification for allowing it to flow for dozens of kilometers.”Werker said a wastewater plant built with millions of euros for the Hebron area cannot operate effectively while large quantities of stone residue continue to enter the system. Israel, he argued, is considering increasingly costly downstream infrastructure while failing to stop pollution that should be addressed at the factory gate.Appeals to High Court for stone plant regulatory enforcementThe legal fight now centers on the factories. Regavim and Green Now have asked Israel’s High Court of Justice to compel enforcement against stone plants they allege are operating without permits and discharging sludge into the Hebron Stream. According to the petitioners, some of the facilities are in Area C or have expanded into it, placing them under Israeli jurisdiction.In a June 29 statement, the petitioners said Supreme Court Justice Alex Stein had ordered the state to respond within 60 days. They quoted Stein as warning that abandonment of the area posed a “serious and irreversible danger to nature.”The organizations said field documentation showed factories connected to Palestinian-administered areas expanding into territory where Israel has enforcement authority. The Media Line did not independently review the full petition.The case also directs part of the blame at Israel. If factories are operating in Area C without valid permits, their continued activity would point to a failure of Israeli enforcement. Regavim and Green Now argue that regulated stone factories in Israel must install systems to keep industrial sludge out of municipal sewers, while unregulated competitors avoid those costs and shift the damage downstream.“We don’t want chaos,” Naomi Kahn, director of Regavim’s international division, told The Media Line. “If the State of Israel has jurisdiction and has authority and has responsibility, then it should exercise those for everyone’s benefit and to protect the land itself.”Kahn said Israel could not leave Area C in administrative uncertainty while the pollution continued.“For now, you’re in charge, you’re responsible for protecting that resource, and you have to do it,” she said. “Because if you don’t, you end up with a disaster - an environmental disaster, a political disaster, a security disaster. You can’t leave a vacuum.”Green Now’s report also cites criticism by Israel’s State Comptroller, who found that the government lacked a unified system for managing cross-border pollution and had not designated a single body to coordinate ministries and agencies. Disputes involving the Hebron Stream and other waterways were repeatedly delayed by fragmented authority and the absence of government decisions, according to passages reproduced in the report.The jurisdictional division dates to the 1995 Interim Agreement. Under Oslo II, the Palestinian Authority received civil and security control in Area A and civil control in Area B, while Israel retained security control in Area B and full control in Area C. The agreement also committed both sides to preventing uncontrolled sewage discharges that could affect the other and to promoting the treatment of domestic and industrial wastewater.Azulay points to that commitment when assigning responsibility to the Palestinian Authority.“The demand is very simple,” he said. “Do what the agreement says that you have to do. If you have to treat your sewage, don’t throw it on the Israeli authorities.”He accused the Palestinian Authority of failing for more than three decades to build, regulate and maintain the systems needed to contain its wastewater.Azulay said he was willing to cooperate with Palestinian officials. “I would like to work with them. I don’t have a problem working with them,” he said. “But they really don’t want to do what they have to do.”Green Now’s reporting partly supports that criticism while documenting other constraints. The organization says Palestinian environmental services receive inadequate budgets and lack enforcement capacity. A separate Green Now report, citing the Palestinian Environmental Quality Authority’s assessment, says Palestinian plans have often lacked formal government approval, skilled personnel and a clear enforcement strategy. Environmental protection accounted for 0.1% of the Palestinian government budget in the material reviewed.The Palestinian assessment argues that Israeli control over land and planning, particularly in Area C, has delayed sewage and other infrastructure projects. It also cites permit restrictions and movement limits.Although Green Now disputes parts of that argument, its report acknowledges difficult terrain, weak municipal budgets, scattered communities and the high cost of connecting them to regional treatment plants. It also records Palestinian complaints about the Joint Water Committee established under the Oslo Accords.Green Now says the committee has been largely paralyzed since 2012. It attributes the breakdown partly to Palestinian opposition to shared facilities and disputes over Israel’s use of treated Palestinian wastewater, while also noting the absence of a coordinated Israeli policy.The Palestinian Authority, the Hebron and Yatta municipalities and representatives of the stone industry did not provide responses for inclusion.For residents beside the stream, the argument is less technical. Ayala Bar On, who works with the Har Hebron Regional Council’s communications team, said the smell keeps people away from open areas near their homes.“There are some places where you cannot even breathe because the air stinks,” she said.Azulay said the complaints reaching his office are direct.“They ask a very simple question: How can we live with that smell?” he said. “It’s sewage that goes through their communities. It’s crazy. You cannot understand it.”For people living along the route, the dispute over permits, treatment plants and jurisdiction is measured more simply: by the smell outside their homes and the condition of the stream.The pending court case may clarify what Israel must enforce in Area C. It will not, by itself, resolve the larger question of who will finance and operate the cross-border infrastructure needed to stop the pollution upstream.Follow us on Google