Occupation forces and settlers storm the Wadi al-Siq Bedouin community, east of Ramallah (Al Jazeera)

Ramallah -

Firas Bani Fadl, a young Palestinian man, lived and grew up in a small herding community called “Al-Sukhn” north of the Jordan Valley, relying with his family on grazing and raising livestock, but the occupation and settlers began to tighten the noose around him.

On Sunday, March 17, the Firas family and 9 other families were about to leave bitterly after they were fed up with the attacks of settlers and the occupation army.

Firas says about the last days in the gathering that one of the settlers set up a tent near the gathering, then brought cows and horses, and began to tighten the noose on the residents, preventing them from grazing their sheep.

He added that the settler later sent the army, which exerted more pressure. He explained, "In a rainy atmosphere, the soldiers raided my house and took me out of it, while they lay on the bed and slept using our belongings. Whenever I tried to clarify the matter, they threatened me and pushed me away, and I stayed in the rain for 4 hours."

♦️The occupation forces 10 Palestinian families from the Al-Sukhan community in the Central Jordan Valley to leave their homes and lands and flee the area. pic.twitter.com/yR3GeEAIgU

- Quds Feed Network (@quds_feed) March 21, 2024

Pressure and harassment

Firas endured the harassment, but the decision for the families to leave came after settlers intercepted one of the residents in an attempt to kill him, but he managed to escape. He asserts, "We held out and tried to stay, but continuing became impossible."

Bani Fadl points out that among the 10 families, there are Bedouin families and others hailing from villages in the northern West Bank, all of which have been distributed and have an unknown future ahead of them.

The Bedouins were known to be nomadic and dependent on raising livestock and pastures, but the situation is tightening on them due to Israeli measures in conjunction with settler attacks, which worsened after last October 7 to the point of deporting dozens of communities.

The Bedouins of Palestine - in general - live in simple dwellings within distant communities that allow them to benefit from large areas of pastures, but since the Nakba in 1948, the situation has begun to tighten on them with the deportation of large numbers of them from the Arad area in southern Palestine, to the West Bank.

But the occupation continued to pursue them in their new shelter in the West Bank desert and its eastern slopes, until it reached the point of strangling them in small gatherings and preventing them from moving across vast areas of land after confiscating them under different names.

Bedouin communities threatened with deportation east and north of Jerusalem (Al Jazeera)

Cleansing and displacement

According to the general supervisor of the “Al-Baidar Organization for Defending Bedouin Rights,” Hassan Malihat, 167 Bedouin communities distributed on the eastern slopes of the West Bank highlands overlooking Jordan are “exposed to the Nakba every day in new clothing.”

He added in his interview with Al Jazeera Net that "the lack of options and the outcome of nothingness related to its unknown fate is like jumping in the air from a high place," explaining that after the outbreak of the war in Gaza, several areas witnessed large-scale attacks by settlers.

Malihat says that since the beginning of this year, his organization has recorded about 500 attacks against Bedouin communities carried out by settler gangs supported by the occupying state to force the Bedouins into forced departure.

He added that hardly a day goes by without recording a new attack by settlers against residents of Bedouin communities, "living the ugliest chapters of the war of ethnic cleansing against them since the Nakba."

Malehat added that attacks and physical assaults on Bedouins were recorded in various Bedouin communities, including stealing their sheep and livestock, carrying out night attacks against them, and searching their homes. The attacks even reached the point where settlers imposed a siege on the residents of Bedouin communities and their sheep within their surroundings and imposed fines on them.

He said that persecution means impoverishing the residents of the communities who depend on sheep grazing by preventing them from pastures and forcing them to leave, so that they live between the hammer of living conditions and the anvil of settler attacks and assaults.

In the face of a torrent of attacks, he adds, there is no longer any choice but forced migration towards the unknown, which results in emptying the land, expanding the settlement area, and fulfilling the Talmudic hallucinations of the settlers.

Press coverage: Settlers storm the Sukhn community, east of Nablus, prevent residents from grazing, cut off their water, and force five Palestinian families to leave. pic.twitter.com/CBk5p9aSlp

- Quds News Network (@qudsn) March 17, 2024

unknown fate

The general supervisor of the “Al-Baidar Organization for Defending Bedouin Rights” points out that the percentage of illegal pastoral settlements has increased in an unprecedented way, which has become a daily occurrence through the construction of tents near Bedouin and herding communities, which has resulted in the presence of an armed army of settlers in the West Bank who practice all kinds of Terrorism and abuse of Palestinians.

In numbers, Malehat says that forced deportation has affected 28 Bedouin communities since last October 7, and 4 before that during 2023, pointing out that 1,124 violations and attacks were recorded during the same year. He added that the occupation forces demolished 6 schools and vandalized 6 others in Palestinian Bedouin communities throughout 2023.

For its part, the Palestinian Wall and Settlement Resistance Authority finds it difficult to return the deportees to their communities, warning of an unknown fate awaiting thousands of Bedouins in the West Bank.

The Director General of the General Department of Documentation and Publishing at the Authority, Amir Daoud, told Al Jazeera Net that the displacement largely targets residents of Bedouin communities in the eastern foothills of the West Bank.

He stated that settlers usually occupy communities that are displaced by their Bedouin owners, and given the state of emergency declared by the occupation since last October 7, it is difficult for the Authority’s crews to reach the communities for documentation or assistance.

He referred to a plan of action by the Authority to return those who wish, if circumstances permit, stressing that some residents refuse to return due to the assault and harassment they faced.

Daoud stated that the majority of those who were displaced took refuge in rural areas that lack pastures, which are the mainstay of Bedouin life, which means a decline in livestock raising and thus the production of meat and milk, and the entry of new members into the unemployment queue.

The Palestinian official explains that the number of Bedouins in the West Bank is estimated at about 37 thousand, while the number of Palestinian communities in Area C, which is under full Israeli control, is 507 communities in which 270 thousand citizens reside, including Bedouins.

According to previous data from the Commission, about 7,000 Bedouins live in 46 communities east of Jerusalem up to the city of Jericho.

Source: Al Jazeera