We even destroy their water wells

The cement mixer vomited out the grayish liquid, which made a noise as it flowed noisily into the water wells, clogging them. Standing there were the soldiers who served as guards, the Civil Administration employees who devised this evil plan, the laborers who carried it out and the peasants who saw their sustenance snuffed out for eternity.

The soldiers tried to disperse them, as one might shoo stray dogs. The concrete continued to pour out and the people from the Civil Administration verified that it covered everything. Soon, all three wells were sealed. It happened last Wednesday, south of Hebron, near the Fawwar refugee camp, and it was the work of the devil, one of the more diabolical deeds of the occupation – and the competition is fierce.

“To the water wells, to the water wells / to the spring that pulses in the mountain / there my love will still find / spring water / groundwater / and river water,” Naomi Shemer wrote in 1982, in “El borot hamayim.” How lovely it is to sing of the wells in public singalongs, and how Zionist this song is, like all her songs. There was no river water in these wells; Shemer’s love for the Land of Israel would have found only spring water and groundwater there, but they will never flow again. Arab-hatred, apartheid, brutality and evil now cover the spring and groundwater and the false love for the Land of Israel. Those who plug up farmers’ wells are motivated by pure evil, and anyone who chokes off spring water hates the land.

The evil of apartheid has many faces; this clogging of wells, in which no blood was shed and no people were arrested, is one of the ugliest. No security lie or pretext can hide the concrete-covered wells, nor can the excuse of law and order, only pure evil. Even if it is not the most horrific of the crimes committed every day in the territories, it is one of the ugliest: sealing up water wells.

The people of the Civil Administration surely have a host of legal and bureaucratic reasons to claim that these wells, in which flowed life-giving groundwater on the edge of the South Hebron Hills desert, are prohibited, illegal, criminal, dangerous and threatening. But nothing, absolutely nothing, can justify such a vile and despicable act. Parcels of land on which wonderful vegetables have been grown for years, cabbage and cauliflower and lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers, a small vegetable garden in the face of the squeeze and the squalor of the Fawwar refugee camp and the aridity of the mountain will now cry out for water. It’s unlikely the farmers can afford to truck in water from afar. It’s more likely that these fields will wither and die, together with the sole source of livelihood for those who have no other options.

The next day, when the video that documented it went viral, the commander of the occupation military, Maj. Gen. Ghasan Alyan, who bears the title “coordinator of government activities in the territories,” rushed to issue a directive specifying that all enforcement activity against water infrastructure in the summer months would be reviewed by the head of the Civil Administration. Reviewed, not ended completely; only in the summer, not in every season. The destruction of water wells and tanks is a cornerstone of the Civil Administration’s demolition activities. When one wishes to cleanse an area and expel people, one must first deprive them of water.

That is the modus operandi. A state that poisoned fields in the Gaza Strip and the Negev from the air does not hesitate, of course, to deny water to shepherds and their flocks. I have seen more than a few wells that the Civil Administration destroyed over the years, and also some that settlers poisoned by throwing animal carcasses into them. It certainly won’t stop now.

There’s just one more thing I must ask: What did the Civil Administration personnel and the soldiers tell their families about their work that day? Did they tell their children or their parents that they destroyed the water wells of peasants who want to live on their land? That that’s their job, and somebody has to do it? We can only hope that this day will haunt them for the rest of their lives.