This paper examines impacts of water inaccessibility and contamination on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. By focusing on the Oslo period to the present, I evaluate why the Joint Water Committee (JWC)—the water management body created under Oslo Accords II (1995) designed to function for five years but operating over 15 years past its expiration date—has facilitated Israel’s perpetuation of the water crisis by omitting consideration of Gaza’s water resources from its mandate, and failing to provide equitable water access for the West Bank. I focus on international law violations regarding water access and quality, specifically water, refugee, and humanitarian law including the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses and the Fourth Geneva Convention, Protocol I. The occupation facilitates “hydrological apartheid”—the Israeli state exploits its position as the Occupying Power to dominate Palestinian water resources (Zeitoun 2011). Only 25% of Gazans have daily access to running water, resulting in a health crisis including exorbitant rates of childhood kidney disease. Gaza’s sole aquifer will be irreparably damage by 2020, cyclical military invasions have decimated the water infrastructure, and climate change is increasing drought and aquifer saltwater intrusion. Diversion of West Bank water to settlements leaves 50,000 people with the minimum levels recommended by the World Health Organization for “short-term survival in an emergency.” This paper fills critical gaps in the study of the Occupation and Israel’s settlement-expansion approach by providing up-to-date analyses through the lens of water access. I address: what are the ongoing connections between the West Bank and Gaza water crises? Transnational comparative analysis addresses why the UN has readily defined cases such as government water shut-offs in the US city of Detroit as human rights violations, though Palestine is denied this classification. Building on work by scholars including Weizman, Gordon, Roy, and Selby, this paper analyzes proposals to mitigate looming water catastrophe in Gaza, including recent developments in desalination, as well as proposals to integrate Gaza into the Israeli water network, while examining which interim solutions are complementary to ending the Occupation—ultimately the only sustainable resolution to the water crisis, now in deeper jeopardy as the Trump administration emboldens Israel’s right to legislate expansive illegal settlement-building, worsening the Palestinian situation as the Balfour Declaration’s 100th anniversary approaches. The paper draws on my ethnographic interviews with civilians in the OPT, and with JWC, UNRWA, and NGO representatives.