The Finance Ministry on Monday gave the green light to the Public Security Ministry to purchase a water control system to be installed in maximum security wings in prisons across the country, with the aim of fighting intentional water waste by Palestinian terrorists behind bars.
The approval to buy the system was given after Public Security Minister appealed a decision last week that prevented the transfer of the funds until a functioning government is formed and a national budget is passed.
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The Israel Prison Service, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Public Security Ministry, had been exploring the possibility of limiting Palestinian security prisoners' time in the shower, after learning the prisoners were wasting it on purpose.
The price of the water control system is NIS 2.3 million ($672,807), but the Public Security Ministry believes the water savings will more than cover the cost.
As a reminder, Israel Hayom first reported in July 2018 that security prisoners had wasted upwards of hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of water on purpose to undercut Israel's water supply, at an estimated cost of millions of shekels.
According to the report, IPS data showed that security prisoners' wards used up far more water than the criminal wards, whose inmates spend less time in their cells. The discrepancy between the wards' water use was so great, that it led the IPS to believe that Palestinian inmates were leaving their showers running for hours on purpose, to waste the water.
An analysis of the data showed that security prisoners use about 3.5 times more water a year than the average Israeli – 250 cubic meters (8,830 cubic feet) compared to 70 cubic meters (2,472 cubic feet).
As there are currently 5,800 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails, they seem to waste an average of 750,000 cubic meters (26,486,000 cubic feet) of water a year, costing taxpayers some 5.6 million shekels ($1.5 million).
"Unlike other inmates, security prisoners spend most of the day in their cells. Due to security constraints, if a ward does not have a common bathroom, the showers and lavatories are often located inside the cells, which allows for the overuse of water," the IPS said in 2018.
