The conclusion of a two-year study conducted by Israeli environmental groups revealed that self-governing Palestinian Arab towns are severely polluting the groundwater so crucial to the survival of both their communities and the Israel's densely populated coastal plain.

The study, reported Israel's Ha'aretz daily newspaper, showed that a number of rivers flowing from the mountains of Judea and Samaria into Israel's coastal plain are heavily polluted by Palestinian municipal and industrial waste.

Israel has tried to collect the polluted water and purify it before it reaches the coastal plain, but experts said most of the pollution is absorbed into the groundwater making up the important central mountain aquifers before reaching Israeli-controlled territory.