The water crisis affecting Palestinian communities in the southern West Bank must be understood within the broader framework of Israeli control over Palestinian water resources. Israel controls more than 85 percent of Palestinian water resources, while Palestinians remain increasingly dependent on water purchased from the Israeli national water company, Mekorot. Furthermore, the water arrangements established under the 1995 Oslo II Agreement created a regulatory framework that requires Palestinian water development projects in many areas of the West Bank to obtain Israeli approval through joint institutional mechanisms, a system that has resulted in an exacerbated water dependency and constrained Palestinian water development on the one hand, while using water as a tool of pressure and coercion against Palestinians on the other.