Water Water, nowhere?

I was talking to some NGO workers the other day, and I learned about the problem in Hebron that involves water.
You have probably heard at one point or another that the water is not divided equally amoung the groups here.  There are basically two governments, the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is below the Israeli government.  The Israeli government decides who gets the water and how it is devided up amoung the people, and the PA who rations out the water that the Israeli government decides that they get.

Needless to say, there isn't a water problem that I know of in the settlements.  The area of the city outside the settlements is another matter, however.  Most of the Palestinians have water tanks that are on their roof.  The PA gives each house 2, and richer families will buy more.  The water is rationed to different areas during the month.  When it is your month, you fill up your tanks and that is all the water that you get for a few weeks.  This means that water usage that it not considered "vital" will have to wait.  Some couples will even have to forgo sexual activity as they are unable to properly wash afterwards to pray.    (I also heard that during the Intifada, bored Israeli soldiers guarding the settlements would shoot at the water tanks to rupture them, and leave the families without water.)

This is obviously not an issue here at the hospital, where we are able to have all the water that we need.  But after learning this, I have taken steps to conserve.