A Palestinian displaced by settlers from his Bedouin community east of Ramallah (Al Jazeera - Archive)

Al-Baidar, an organization concerned with the rights of Bedouins in the West Bank, said that Israeli settlers forced five Palestinian families to leave a community they have lived in since the 1970s, and warned that deportation threatens the remaining residents of the community.

The general supervisor of the organization defending Bedouin rights, Hassan Malihat, said that a number of settlers attacked Bedouin families yesterday evening, Sunday, in the Sukhn area, east of the city of Nablus (north of the West Bank), and prevented them from grazing their sheep in pastures, and withheld water from them.

Malehat stated that the harassment aimed at controlling large areas of Palestinian pastures forced 5 Bedouin families, numbering about 30 members, to leave at gunpoint. He pointed out that the residents of the Al-Sukhan community, estimated to number about 200 people, are threatened by the same fate.

Malihat explained that the residents of the community depend on grazing and livestock raising as their only source of income, while the beginning of their presence on the site dates back to the 1970s.

Bedouin communities are exposed to settler terrorism (Al Jazeera)

Seizure and warning

The organization's official warned that the departure of all families - if it occurs - would mean the settlers' seizure of large mountainous areas inhabited and moved by Bedouins and used for grazing and agriculture, exceeding 15 thousand dunams (a dunam equals a thousand square metres).

Malehat stressed that the Bedouin communities in particular in the Jordan Valley are subjected to "the largest ethnic cleansing process since the Nakba, as a result of settler terrorism and the lack of support from any party."

He explained that the Bedouin population feels the bitterness of alienation within their homeland, because they were left alone, exposed and isolated in an unequal battle with the settlers.

Malehat revealed statistics from his organization indicating that forced deportation has affected 28 Bedouin communities in the West Bank since October 7, 2023, in addition to 4 Bedouin communities that were deported before this date.

He pointed out the demolition of 6 schools in Bedouin communities during 2023, and the sabotage of 6 other schools, and indicated that the number of violations according to Al-Baidar Organization statistics in the same year amounted to 1,124 violations and assaults.

During 2024, Malihat said that the organization he runs monitored and documented approximately 460 violations.

He said that the occupation authorities and settlers devised a new policy at the beginning of this year against the Bedouins.

He explained that this policy consists of imposing a state of siege on citizens and their sheep within the vicinity of population centers, and imposing heavy financial fines on citizens who bring their sheep into the mountains for grazing, by the settlement council in the West Bank.

A previous raid by the Israeli occupation forces on a Bedouin village (Al Jazeera)

Assaults and convictions

For its part, the official Palestinian News Agency reported that settlers attacked, on Sunday, a number of shepherds, injured two of them with bruises, and stole 40 heads of sheep, in the Al-Matwi area, west of Salfit (north).

In a related context, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned in the strongest terms the attempt of what it described as “extremist colonial organizations and associations” to establish a new settlement outpost and expand it at the expense of citizens’ lands located between the villages of Al-Laban Al-Gharbi, Rantis, and Deir Ballut, west of the city of Ramallah (central).

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry also strongly condemned the assaults and attacks by what it described as “colonial militias and their armed terrorist elements” on all areas in Masafer Yatta (south of the West Bank).

It spoke about the open war of occupation against all forms of Palestinian presence throughout the areas classified as (C), including the Jordan Valley and the Bedouin communities spread throughout it.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said that the international failure to implement Resolution 2334 (the illegality of settlements) encourages the settlers and those behind them from the political echelon in Israel to persist in committing more violations, oppression and abuse against the Palestinian people and stealing more of their lands to allocate them for the benefit of settlements.

The occupation authorities and settlers invented a new policy at the beginning of this year against the Bedouins (Al Jazeera)

Estimates and warnings

It is estimated that there are more than 720,000 settlers in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.

The United Nations, and most of the international community, considers settlement in the territories occupied since 1967 illegal, warning that it undermines the chances of addressing the conflict in accordance with the principle of a two-state solution.

Since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, settlers have escalated their attacks in the West Bank, and the army has escalated its operations, leaving more than 435 martyrs and about 4,700 wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Israel is waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, leaving tens of thousands of victims, most of them children and women, in addition to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and a noticeable deterioration in infrastructure and property, which led to Israel being brought before the International Court of Justice on charges of committing genocide.

Source: Anadolu Agency