[We invited Mekorot to respond to the concerns raised in this report. It replied that it implements Israeli Govt. policy and that we should therefore address our invitation to the Israeli Water Authority. The Water Authority's response is below]. [T]he water sector in the OPT and Israel is characterised by highly asymmetrical overexploitation of damageable shared water resources, exhaustion of long-term storage, deterioration of water quality and increasing levels of demand driven by high population growth, accompanied by decreasing per capita supplies. However, the burden is disproportionately borne by the Palestinian population, who are impeded from exercising effective control over the development and management of the available water resources in the region…[I]n 1982…ownership of Palestinian water infrastructure in the West Bank [was transferred to] to Israel’s national water company ‘Mekorot,’ which has forced Palestinians to rely on the company to meet their annual water needs…‘Mekorot’ directly extracts water from the Palestinian share of the water resources in order to supply copious amounts to Israeli settlements…‘Mekorot’ routinely reduces Palestinian supply – sometimes by as much as 50 per cent – during the summer months in order to meet consumption needs in the settlements.