Sep. 26, a convoy of water tankers and two buses with Israelis set out for the Palestinian villages in the South Hebron Hills. Some ten kilometers before the rendezvous point soldiers blocked them, spreading spikes on the highway and declaring the South Hebron area "a closed military zone."

Thereupon, activists streamed out of the buses -- to proceed on foot. In a long line they walked along the southward road, under the desert sun, followed by nervous soldiers and international TV crews.

While the army's attention was drawn to the marching protesters, the water tankers turned back from the roadblock and left the highway for unpaved desert tracks. Some parts of these badly maintained roads proved, however, impassable to the heavy tankers. Activists who accompanied the tankers put rocks where wheels might have sunk in the sand and a Palestinian bulldozer came to flatten the path.

The tankers duly arrived at the rendezvous point where hundreds of villagers were waiting. Meanwhile, the marching Israeli activists also arrived, having been picked by the villagers and transported on swaying platforms towed by Palestinian tractors.

The water distribution proceeded as planned, tankers and activists traveling among the small hamlets in the area, stopping at each and giving inhabitants their share. Cattle troughs were often filled directly from the tanker, and thirsty sheep started drinking immediately.

However, the belatedly arrived soldiers tried to arrest the Palestinian bulldozer driver, claiming that his opening of blocked routes constituted a "security risk." Dozens of Israelis surrounded the bulldozer, some of them climbing on it, with their bodies blocking the soldiers from approaching the driver.

"Shame on you!" activists shouted. "Shame on you for denying the people here water, and filling their wells with earth! One day all of you will be ashamed to tell your grandsons what you have done!"

After a two hours standoff the commander gave in and let the bulldozer depart. Several of the activists accompanied it all the way back its village of origin.

The by now famous Ezra Nawi had been among the organizers. Hanging over him was a one-month imprisonment for "having assaulted policemen" -- blocking their way when destroying a Palestinian home in the same South Hebron Hills, back in 2007.

The four tankers were just "a drop" but it was these kind of joint actions that resulted in raising awareness, even in some Israeli papers.

In its Oct. 27 report Amnesty International charged Israel with denying Palestinians adequate water supplies from the shared water resources. "While Palestinian water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israelis consume more than 300 litres. 200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater."

The government had a ready answer: "We are giving the Palestinians according to the Oslo Agreements." Which is true, but by the same agreement a Palestinian state should have been in place by May 1999, with naturally sovereign control over its natural resources...