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2005Water and farming

Israel's first seawater desalination plant starts operating at Ashkelon.

The plant begins to run in August 2005, six years after the government decided to prepare for seawater desalination.

The story in numbers.

Here is how it happened.

  • The seventies

    Israel's first desalination plant opens in Eilat.

    It desalinates mostly brackish groundwater and still works today. It gives about 20 million cubic metres a year.

    SourceKnesset Research Center

  • 1999

    A severe water crisis leads the government to prepare for seawater desalination.

    In the following years it adopts a series of decisions about building plants. In practice the first seawater plant only starts operating in 2005.

    SourceKnesset Research Center

  • August 2005

    The Ashkelon desalination plant starts operating.

    Built under a build, operate, transfer contract at a cost of NIS 1 billion, it first supplies 50 million cubic metres a year. The plan is to reach 100 million cubic metres a year.

    SourceGlobes

  • 2006

    A State Comptroller audit finds that only one of seven planned plants is running.

    Government decisions had called for seven plants by the end of 2004, and a second was under construction. The Comptroller finds that the Finance Ministry, the Water Commission and the National Infrastructures Ministry were slow to act.

    SourceKnesset Research Center

  • By October 2015

    Five seawater desalination plants are running.

    They are Ashkelon, Palmachim, Hadera, Sorek and Ashdod. Each can produce 90 to 150 million cubic metres a year.

    SourceKnesset Research Center

  • 2016

    Desalination plants produce 604 million cubic metres of water.

    Of that, 62 million cubic metres come from brackish groundwater. The Water Authority puts the capacity of all plants at about 660 million cubic metres a year.

    SourceKnesset Research Center

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More pictures from this story.

  • A black and white photograph of round tanks and pipework on a shore, with a calm sea and hills behind

    An old desalination plant on the Red Sea shore at Eilat

Here is why it matters.

Israel has a constant shortage of natural water, and desalinated water has become an important source of it. In 2016 desalination produced 604 million cubic metres of water.

Three more milestones to read next.

  • Visitors on a walkway above a treatment basin at the Sorek desalination plant

    2013

    The Sorek desalination plant reaches full operation.

    Read the story

  • 2024

    Israel reclaims over 80 percent of its wastewater, Spain about 30.

    Read the story

  • The open canal of the National Water Carrier in the Upper Galilee

    1964

    The National Water Carrier brings Galilee water to the Negev.

    Read the story

Where each fact was read.

Sources read on 1 November 2026.