Ein Bubin is a natural spring located in Deir Ibzi town in the West Bank district of Ramallah, and its name has become more famous following a recent anti-occupation attack that killed an Israeli soldier and wounded two others.

The resistance attack was an opportunity to expose the Israeli settlers' unlawful exploitation of Palestinian natural resources in the West Bank.

Once the Israeli settlers find a new natural spring in the West Bank, whether small or large, they build a new Jewish community around it or announce it a closed zone and prevent the Palestinians from approaching it.

Ein Bubin is one of the most beautiful natural sites in the West Bank that it known for its high water flow.

The name "Bubin" is of Canaanite origins, and it might be derived from the fact that the spring has two doors. The Israeli settlers have been seeking for years to change the name into "Ein Dani", the name of a Jewish settler who was killed in the same site five years ago.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the total number of springs in the West Bank is estimated at 530 of which about 26.8 million cubic meters of water flow annually.

The West Bank water springs are used for irrigating plants, watering livestock and drinking. They are also considered perfect destinations for recreation and domestic tourism.

Settler attacks
The Palestinian farmer Mohammed Tleib told the PIC reporter, "The Israeli settlers have been trying for years to control Ein Bubin turning the life of the Palestinian inhabitants in the area into an intolerable hell. During the olive harvest season they chop off the olive trees close to the spring. They set up ambushes for the Palestinian farmers and attack them or prevent them from reaching their lands."

The Israeli settlers further organize regular trips to the area as a natural reserve completely ignoring the Palestinian landowners from Deir Ibzi and the surrounding towns.

Naim Ja'wan, the head of the Deir Ibzi village council, told the PIC reporter that Ein Bubin is part of the Israeli settlers' plans targeting water resources in the West Bank.

He pointed out that Ein Bubin is constantly targeted by the Israeli settlers living in the nearby settlement of Dolev which was built illegally on Palestinian-owned lands.

Theft
According to a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories (OCHA), the Israeli occupation authorities systematically Judaize the springs they control in the West Bank.

OCHA said that the stealing of the spring is done by marking it as a tourist site then giving it a Hebrew name to suggest that it has a presence in the alleged Jewish history of Palestine.

After that, the report noted, the Israeli authorities gradually change the geography of the site by building new recreation facilities around the spring and rehabilitating the place for settler visits.

The Israeli settlers have fully seized 56 water springs in the West Bank, changing their Arabic name into Hebrew, preventing the Palestinians from accessing them, annexing them to nearby settlements, or simply polluting and destroying them.

 

Source: The Palestinian Information Center