Settlers burned the Najada family home in the Al-Auja area near Jericho (social networking sites)

Jenin -

In a hurry, Suleiman Al-Najada was able to escape from the house with his children and his brother’s family as soon as he saw a group of settlers crossing the mountainside opposite his tent and preparing to attack and assault them.

The fears of rescue were valid. As soon as the settlers arrived, they began setting fire to his tent and his brother's tent, burning the sheep pens, and destroying everything.

Al-Najada narrated to Al-Jazeera Net what happened to him, saying, “One hour before breakfast, I saw a number of settlers gathering at the foot of the mountain opposite us. I felt that they were preparing for something. I told my family to prepare to evacuate the house, and I moved to evacuate the sheep. I expected that they would come to vandalize and beat with sticks.” And stones as we have been accustomed to for 6 months, but they burned my house and my brother’s house. If we had delayed a little, we would have been burned too.”

Bedouin communities abound in the northern Jordan Valley region (social networking sites)

Kill or leave

Suleiman Al-Najada, his two wives, and 9 of his children, in addition to his mother, brother, and family, live in two adjacent houses made of tin and tents in the Al-Auja Waterfall area near the Al-Auja village in the Palestinian Jordan Valley. Since the beginning of the war on the Gaza Strip, the area has been exposed to a significant increase in settler attacks on Bedouin residents and families with the aim of Forcibly deport them and seize their lands.

About 110 families residing in the Bedouin area are exposed to attacks on an almost daily basis by settlers. The attacks consist of stealing their sheep, vandalizing their tents, destroying their property, and preventing them from farming on their lands, in addition to directly attacking them with beatings and assaults.

Al-Najada says, “The settlers’ harassment increases little by little, but every morning they come down to us from the mountain, prevent the sheep from grazing, beat us with sticks and stones, demolish tents, but when they reach the point where they burn our homes, the goal has become very clear. They are trying to kill us all.” ".

He added, "Today we and my brother's family fled to the village of Al-Auja, but how long will we continue to flee? The settlers are trying in every way to expel us from this area, and the truth is that attempts to expel us have existed for years, but they have increased on a daily basis during the past six months," that is, since the beginning of the war on the Gaza Strip. Gaza.

The residents of the Auja Waterfall believe that the settlers are trying to displace them from their Bedouin community through increasing harassment and attacks, and all of this is being done with the protection of the Israeli occupation army and the police, which neither prevent these attacks nor punish those who carry them out.

The residents of the Bedouin community live in a state of fear for the fate of their children and their lives, and for the fate of their sheep, which are their only source of income, after repeated attempts to burn their homes and tents, which are “direct attempts to kill,” as they say.

A settler provokes the residents of the region by being present in grazing areas near Palestinian Bedouin communities (social networking sites)

Displacement of families

The Palestinian Wall and Settlement Authority reported in a report it prepared about a week ago about the forced displacement operations caused by the occupation’s expulsive measures with the support of settlers, that after October 7, 2023, the attacks and threats of armed colonists escalated, taking advantage of the media focus on the Gaza Strip and the absence of media coverage. About the West Bank and Jerusalem.

The authority’s spokesman, Amir Daoud, says, “Despite all international laws and legislation that prohibit displacement, including the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the occupying state from destroying any immovable or movable property related to individuals, groups, the state, or public authorities, unless military operations absolutely require With this destruction, the Commission monitored the displacement of 25 Palestinian Bedouin communities, including 220 families and 1,277 individuals, from their places of residence to other places.”

He added, "The most prominent displacement operations were in Wadi al-Siq, east of Ramallah, where a series of armed attacks on its residents began in October of last year, and despite the presence of members of the Wall and Settlement Authority in the place and their connection with the people for more than 45 days, a number of Of the residents were forced to leave on October 10, 2023 due to settler threats,” and the number of families leaving the Wadi Al-Siq region reached 30 families, including 40 minors.

According to the Wall and Settlement Commission, one of the most prominent Bedouin communities that were temporarily displaced after the start of the war on the Gaza Strip was Khirbet Zanuta in the southern Jordan Valley, specifically in the Al-Dhaheriya area in the Hebron Governorate, where 36 families comprising 400 people, half of whom were children, were displaced. After dismantling 50 tents and “barracks” for sheep, and evacuating approximately 4,700 sheep that they owned.

The two villages of Ain al-Rashrash, east of Ramallah, and Jabait, north of Ramallah, were also emptied, with a total of 23 families. Photos recently published on the newsgroups of Palestinian journalists show individual settlers wandering near the tents of Palestinian residents in various Bedouin communities in the north and south of the West Bank, some of them He takes care of sheep, which the residents of these communities considered provocative actions towards them.

Displacement and increasing violence

The annual report of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Palestine (OCHA) stated that 1,257 people were displaced from their areas of residence due to increasing settler violence after the seventh of last October. The report stated that by the end of 2022, 4 Bedouin communities had been completely emptied of their residents, Meanwhile, the increasing settler attacks after the war on the Gaza Strip affected approximately 15 other Bedouin communities.

According to OCHA, cases of assault by settlers increased to 7 daily cases, while there were 3 daily assault cases during the year 2022. The report confirmed that settlers directly supervise the forced displacement operations that occur to residents of Palestinian Bedouin communities, and OCHA confirmed that Between October 7 and the end of last December, at least 198 Palestinian families were displaced, including 586 children.

In the northern Jordan Valley, attempts to displace the Palestinian population from Bedouin communities and ruins did not subside even before the war on the Gaza Strip, and the occupation uses all methods and harassment against the residents of these areas, which represent 30% of the area of ​​the West Bank, as the occupation prevents them from building or extending water and electricity lines, or Grazing in areas where water springs are available.

However, after the war on the Gaza Strip, the pace of Israeli harassment of the residents of the northern Jordan Valley increased, and Israel gave settlers a large area of ​​control over the lands in the villages of Kardala, Bardala, and Ain al-Bayda, and allowed them to control and prevent the Palestinians from farming or grazing in them, or even moving around in them.

Source: Al Jazeera