With the on-going crisis in the Middle East, this week's Earth Report takes a look at how controlling who has access to natural resources is as much a feature of conflict as bullets and bombs.

Greening the desert

For generations, Kayed Jaber's family has farmed a valley near Hebron. Kayed and his brother Ismael grow fruit and vegetables for market - an activity made possible in the parched desert by the ancient technique of storing rainwater in underground reservoirs.

But there is a serious water shortage and the brothers are building two new reservoirs to catch and store rainwater.

Urban invasion

Less than one mile away, Israeli settlers are moving in ever greater numbers onto Palestinian farmland. The hills around Ismael and Kayed's lands now form a water-greedy Israeli settlement called Kyriat Arbat where the settlers enjoy lush green parkland and swimming in the local pool.

Since the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict, the population of Israel and the West Bank has more than doubled. Both Arab and Israeli statistics show that in another 25 years the population in this part of the country is set to double again. As numbers increase, competition for land and water is causing friction between the communities.

Now, Kayed and Ismael's water problem has turned into a battle with the Israeli Civil Administration - the military government of the West Bank that decides all aspects of Palestinian life.

The Civil Administration believe that Kayed and Ismael's reservoirs haven't been built to catch rainwater but to store water illegally diverted from pipelines destined for Israeli settlements. Even though there is no proof of water-stealing, the reservoirs are destroyed anyway.

Oppressed as oppressors?

Three months later, Earth Report returned to find out what happened after the reservoirs were demolished.

Now the brothers' situation is much worse. They've been warned to stop farming and a demolition notice has been served on Ismael's house. The Civil Administration is able to do this because the brothers' farmland lies within Area C of the West Bank - an area which under the Oslo Peace Agreements falls under complete Israeli control. With no-one to help them, they are extremely vulnerable to the demands of the Civil Administration.

With his savings lost on the reservoir and his home at risk, Ismael has written an open letter to Mr Barak, the Israeli Prime Minister, asking him to 'stop these criminal acts against people who are only trying to live'.

Ismael believes that the Civil Administration, rather than forcibly remove them, are making life so unbearable that they will leave of their own accord.

Progress for the Israeli's, it seems, comes at a high price for the Palestinians.