‘The most successful land-grab strategy since 1967’ as settlers push Bedouins off West Bank territory
Herders report violence driving them from their homes in accelerating, aggressive and highly effective campaign
The
tiny settlement overlooking the Bedouin village of Ein Rashash is named
“Angels of Peace”, but, says Sliman al-Zawahri, its residents have
visited only violence, fear and despair on his family.
This
week the Bedouin community packed up most of their belongings and drove
all the women, children and elderly people from the West Bank ridge
they had called home for nearly four decades, perched above a spring and
beside an archaeological site.
“They
didn’t leave us air to breathe,” said Zawahri, 52, describing a
months-long campaign of violence and intimidation that intensified in
the last two weeks. First villagers were barred from grazing lands, and
the spring, then violence reached their homes.
“They
came into the village and destroyed houses and sheep pens, beat an
85-year-old man, scared our children. Slowly our lives became
unlivable.”
A few men are trying to stay on
amid the shells of homes, empty animal pens, smashed solar panels and
broken windows, staking a fragile claim to their own village.
Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
This
was not an individual tragedy. Men from Angels of Peace are part of a
broad, violent and very successful political project to expand Israeli
control of the West Bank that has accelerated, say activists, since the 7
October attacks by Hamas launched a war with Israel.
The unlikely agents of this land grab are sheep and goats, herded by radical settlers on small outposts.
Taking
land by building homes and communities on it is slow and expensive.
Taking control of large swathes of dry hills needed to feed a herd of
animals, by intimidating and isolating Palestinian shepherds and
bringing in another herd, is much more efficient.
“This
has been the most successful land-grab strategy since 1967,” said
Yehuda Shaul, a prominent activist who is director of the Israeli Center
for Public Affairs thinktank, and a founder of Breaking the Silence, an
NGO that exposes military abuses in occupied areas.
Over
the last year alone, 110,000 dunams, or 110 sq km (42 sq miles), was
effectively annexed by settlers on herding outposts, he said. All the
built-up settlement areas constructed since 1967 cover only 80 sq km.
It
was also the biggest displacement of Palestinian Bedouins since 1972,
when at least 5,000 – and perhaps as many as 20,000 – people were moved
from the northern Sinai to make way for settlements, Shaul added.
Settlers and their political allies have celebrated this relatively new approach.
“One
action that we’ve expanded over the years is the shepherding farms,”
Ze’ev “Zambish” Hever, the secretary general of the settler organisation
Amana, told a 2021 conference.
“Today they
cover close to twice the land that the built-up communities cover … we
understand the significance of the matter: see, it is a lot.”
Houses and sheep pens were destroyed at Ein Rashash in the violence, said Sliman al-Zawahri. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
About
450,000 Israelis have settled in what is now Area C of the West Bank –
the area under full Israeli military and political control – since the
occupation of the Palestinian territories began in 1967, some motivated by religious or nationalistic reasons, and others by the cheaper cost of living.
Their
presence is viewed by most of the international community as a major
obstacle to lasting peace, but until recently most focus has been on
communities of houses rather than herder outposts.
In
September, the UN warned about rising settler violence targeting
Palestinian herders and driving them from their homes and land.
“A
total of 1,105 people from 28 communities – about 12% of their
population – have been displaced from their places of residence since
2022, citing settler violence and the prevention of access to grazing
land by settlers as the primary reason,” the United Nations office for
the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said.
Now with the Israeli military preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza, diplomats concerned about rescuing hostages in Gaza and averting regional war, and a national mood of fury after the massacre of 1,400 people on 7 October, there is little focus on the West Bank.
The abandoned village of Wadi a-Seeq. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
In
a climate of fear for Palestinians – the Israeli human rights group
B’Tselem said soldiers and settlers have killed 62 Palestinians over 10
days – the displacement of herders has sped up, say activists.
The
Guardian visited two villages abandoned in less than a week, Ein
Rashash and Wadi a-Seeq, and a third where some families were discussing
leaving.
“This was already the most
significant displacement we’ve seen since the 1970s. Now you have seen
two villages abandoned in one week,” Shaul said. “This is on steroids.”
Herder
settlers living near the village of al-Mu’arrajat had begun stopping
Palestinians, asking for their IDs and telling them they had 24 hours to
leave their homes, said Alia Mlehat, 27.
They
had blocked people from leaving the village, pulled people out of their
cars, and driven between homes, she said. They all had assault rifles
and sometimes shot into the air.
“Since the
beginning of the war, no one can go anywhere,” she said. “It is a slow
process of deepening fear … there is no way out, as the war has
restricted our lives.”
The only journeys out
of her community now were one-way trips. “One man left already with his
wife and children. Five other families are considering leaving,” she
said.
Alia Mlehat, from al-Mu’arrajat: ‘No one can go anywhere … there is no way out,’ she said. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
Israeli
herder settlers had taken control of 10% of Area C and 6% of the entire
West Bank in about five years, Shaul said, citing figures compiled by Kerem Navot, an NGO that tracks settler activity.
The
denial of grazing access adds economic warfare to physical violence.
Cutting off land for grazing and growing fodder forces herders to sell
off some animals, and with smaller flocks, they make less money and are
more vulnerable to sickness, injury or other loss.
“Palestinian
herders should be self-reliant based on their established livelihoods.
Instead they need humanitarian assistance because of settler violence
and the failure of Israeli authorities to hold perpetrators
accountable,” the UN OCHA report said.
The
impact was so serious, it may amount to a war crime, the statement
added. Along with demolitions, evictions and restrictions on movement
and construction, the attacks on herders created “a coercive environment
that contributes to displacement that may amount to forcible transfer, a
grave breach of the Fourth Geneva convention”.
The
enclosure of herding lands has also left some villages virtually
besieged, with people forced to take long circuitous routes to land that
is near home but on the other side of a section claimed by settlers.
The abandoned village of Wadi a-Seeq. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian
In
the most extreme cases, villagers are so frightened of travelling on
roads controlled by settlers that Israeli activists from groups that try
to protect Bedouin communities – living with them, walking with them as
they herd flocks and documenting abuses – are bringing them food and
water.
They too sometimes become targets. Hagar Gefen, 71, was beaten so violently last year that she ended up in hospital with broken ribs and a punctured lung.
“Nothing
could make me stop,” said Gefen, an anthropologist whose sense of
humour matches her courage. “Unless maybe they cut off my legs – you
have to be able to walk to be with the shepherds.”
No
one has been prosecuted for that attack, and activists and Palestinians
say they have little faith in Israeli authorities in the West Bank. The
UN said that in four out of five communities, residents had filed
complaints about settler violence, but only 6% knew of any follow-up.
For
many communities the displacement is a second upheaval driven by the
Israeli state and its citizens. Al-Zawahri’s family were forced out of
the Negev area in 1948, and wandered for several years before settling
in their current homes.
They hope that when
the war is over, the Israeli state – or international pressure – will
ensure this new exile is not permanent.
“We
are eager for the war to finish, to try to come back home,” said Ayoub
al-Zawahri, 50. “We are living in places that don’t belong to us.”