One of the caves in the wilderness of Bethlehem most recently targeted for confiscation and settlement (Al Jazeera)

Bethlehem – In a new targeting revealed for the first time, Israeli settlers have seized several Palestinian caves east of the city of Bethlehem, in the southern West Bank, after expelling their owners, and turning them into tourist attractions.

According to a Palestinian official, the settlers, with the help of the Israeli occupation army, took advantage of the aggression on the Gaza Strip since October 7 to expel Palestinian farmers from large areas of wilderness areas belonging to villages east of Bethlehem, estimated at tens of thousands of dunums, and then restore and promote them as overnight sites.

Wilderness areas east of Bethlehem among thousands of dunums confiscated and expelled in recent months (Al Jazeera)

Forced displacement

The Saqr Jibreen family is one of several Palestinian families who have been forcibly displaced by settler attacks, deprived of cultivating their land, grazing their sheep and returning to it.

Jibreen says – in his interview with Al Jazeera Net – that his family of 10 members were residing in a cave, and next to it "Berks", a tin building used for housing sheep and keeping fodder, "but after the war on Gaza we were expelled from our land, so we had to move to the town of Tuqu' (east of Bethlehem) and we could not return to our property and homes."

"The settlers occupied the cave, renovated it, lived there, dismantled the shacks and threw away our belongings, including blankets and mattresses," he said. He said he was shocked to see the cave he was sheltering turned into a shrine under the control of settlers who use it for tourist promotion.

Jibreen pointed out that the same thing was repeated with other citizens, saying, "At least I know six or seven families who have had the same thing happen, and they have been displaced and the roads that lead to their caves and lands have been blocked."

According to the documentation of the Palestinian Commission to Resist the Wall and Settlements, it monitored the displacement of 6 Palestinian families, numbering dozens of members, from the wild area east of the town of Tuqu' in Bethlehem, forcing their residents to return to the eastern villages.

Tourism Promotion

Hassan Brejia, director of the commission's Bethlehem office, said the commission does not have accurate and definitive statistics on what is happening in large areas in the east of the governorate.

Brigia added – for Al Jazeera Net – that Israeli accounts recently began publishing propaganda materials on social networks for caves, whose owners were expelled as places for tourism and sleeping, and raised the Israeli flag, after carrying out restoration operations in them and placing beds and lockers inside.

"The aim of bringing settlers to this area as part of the 'tourist settlement' scheme that has begun to spread widely, in addition to the so-called pastoral outposts, which are hotspots where settler shepherds reside, use large areas of Palestinian land, and prohibit their owners from entering it," Brigia said.

According to the Palestinian official, all the caves are known by the names of their Palestinian owners, who used them to sleep, sleep sheep and keep fodder before they were displaced, and some of them were used by their owners in the seasons or on weekends.

Bregia described what is happening as "a war crime committed by the occupation and settlers by forcibly deporting Palestinian families and their children from their privately owned lands and bringing settlers in their place."

Regarding the chances of going to the Israeli judiciary to recover the caves, he said that the owners are afraid to go to police stations to file complaints, because they are located inside settlements and because the Israeli judiciary has not been fair in similar cases.

He pointed out that the Palestinian Commission to Resist the Wall and Settlements intends to hire a lawyer in the case to stop the attack on the residents' caves and lands and return their owners to them.

Desert Abuse

For its part, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement Monday that "the ruling Israeli right is fabricating escalation to implement the version of destruction and displacement in the Gaza Strip on the West Bank."

The ministry pointed to "the settlers' invasion of the Palestinian desert and Bedouin communities, their homes and caves throughout the occupied West Bank, as is the case continuously in all areas of the Jordan Valley, Masafer Yatta and the eastern areas of Bethlehem."

"The armed settlers, under the protection of the occupation army, continue the crimes of displacing these communities, abusing them and imposing forced displacement on them to evacuate the lands in which they live to allocate them for settlements," she said.

According to the annual report of the Commission to Resist the Wall and Settlements, during 2023, 25 Palestinian Bedouin communities comprising 1517,7 individuals were displaced, most of whom were displaced after October <>.

Source : Al Jazeera