Timeline: How One Palestinian West Bank Community Was Erased
On the day that the last families fled Ras Ein al-Auja in the Jordan Valley, only four of the village's roughly 200 schoolkids went to school. They were all Deif Jahalin's kids. That day, January 25th, Jahalin - with his six eldest children, his wife, and their remaining neighbors - packed his entire 50-year existence into a truck. He hasn't been back since.
He now lives with his family less than 12 kilometers away, near the Palestinian town of Auja. He lists four areas in the West Bank that other families fled to. 600 people displaced, families separated. A community erased.
Jahalin, speaking to Haaretz 101 days after state-backed settler violence emptied Ras Ein al-Auja, says his 8-year-old daughter, his youngest, asks him to take her back constantly.
"She pleads: 'when are we going back? When are we going back?' She wants to go back to our school, she wants to go back to our land, to our home," Jahalin says. "We live on hope. And hopefully, we will return."
Credit: Itai Ron1 of 10 | Credit: Itai Ron Itai Ron documented Ras Ein al-Auja's final day on January 25, 2026.
Their fate is currently tied up at Israel's High Court of Justice in Jerusalem, where Ras Ein al-Auja is a petitioner in an ongoing case. The next hearing is scheduled for May 14; the day after, Jahalin will mark the first Nakba Day since he was forcibly displaced from his village in January. "It's not just one Nakba, it's a series of them," he tells Haaretz.
Graffiti in Arabic that reads "Third Nakba 2026," in Ras Ein al-Auja, in January.Credit: Itai Ron
Ras Ein al-Auja was the 45th Palestinian community in the West Bank to be forcibly displaced by state-backed settler violence that has accelerated and intensified since October 7, 2023, according to Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem.
Between April 2024 and the village's total evacuation in January 2026, four more outposts popped up, one in each cardinal direction. By late 2025, settlers from one of these outposts set up an encampment in the middle of Ras Ein al-Auja.
Jordan Valley Regional Council Land Inspector Meir Nir, center, confronting a Ras Ein al-Auja resident on December 30, 2025 with Israel Police officers after residents called to report a raid by settlers.Credit: Roman Levin
The residents did everything they could. They called the police to report each hostile incident, and they filed complaints. They took photos and videos to document the daily harassment from Hilltop Youth and their flocks of camels, sheep and goats. They held out their phones to show the videos to the authorities deployed to answer the emergency call; they uploaded the documentation to police reports as proof.
Human rights groups and Israeli activists joined their efforts. Last summer, the village allocated a tent to accommodate its new need for 24/7 protective presence from volunteer activists. But non of this changed the village's fate: It took less than a month for that outpost to cause Ras Ein al-Auja's entire population to flee.
Left: Ras Ein al-Auja's namesake spring in April 2026.Credit: Ilia Yefimovich/AFP
Right: The spring in 2020.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg
Even in his new locale, Jahalin, a father of 10, says he still lives in panic mode. He has found no relief from the relentless state-backed settler violence that drove him here. "The settlers now come to the area we are in, even though it's classified as Area A," Jahalin says. "There is no deterrent, because there is no punishment, no matter what they do. They do as they like."
Scroll down to read the story of Ras Ein al-Auja.
1948
Initial displacement
Palestinian refugees during the Nakba.Credit: Jim Pringle/AP
Families from the Bedouin Ka'abneh and Jahalin tribes are displaced from the Negev Desert during the Nakba in 1948. They relocate to Yatta and the Ramallah area in the Jordanian-controlled West Bank.
1980s
Second displacement
Goats drinking at Ein al-Auja, 1969.Credit: IPPA/National Library of Israel/Wikimedia Commons
Following the Six-Day War and Israel's occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the families are forced to relocate once again, to Jericho.
In the early 1980s, families began moving from Jericho to the town of Auja nearby. With permission from the landowners, they settle a stretch of desert 6 kilometers east of Auja that has long been known locally in Arabic as Ras Ein al-Auja, or "the head of Auja Spring," a nod to the flowing water source a short walk away, ideal for shepherding in the desert.
2004
Israeli outpost established
Omer's Farm in 2017.Credit: Emil Salman
Omer Atidiah, a then-newly religious settler from the Arava Desert, and his partner Naama establish Omer's Farm on the site of an abandoned military base.
The farm is built as an outpost, without Israeli building permits. Yitav, the neighboring settlement, allocated 8,000 dunams (1,976 acres) to Omer's Farm. In a February 2026 Instagram post, Naama describes it as being "Totally desolated, derelict, abandoned agricultural orchards with tree stumps and cut and looted pipelines in every direction."
In 2017, Amira Hass notes that Israel's Civil Administration had issued demolition orders against the farm's buildings every year since 2017. The outpost made headlines in 2022 for hosting an elite reservist infantry unit during a reserve stint in the Jordan Valley.
"It begins with the state turning a blind eye to illegal things," Yesh Atid MK Ram Ben Barak said at the time. "It would be appropriate if the army were not present in a place that is illegal and not formally authorized by the state."
April 17, 2013
Daif Jahalin: 'Settlers stole 90 sheep'
Flocks in Ras Ein-al-Auja, January 2026.Credit: Itai Ron
When Haaretz asks Daif Jahalin about the Nakba on Day 101 of his 2026 displacement, he clarifies: "The settler attacks didn't suddenly start in 2023 or 2024. They've been ongoing since 2012–2013, particularly in our agricultural grazing lands.
"On April 17, 2013, they took six heads of my sheep. ... We found some hidden in a well."
According to a UN report: Settlers stole some 90 sheep while they were grazing between Yitav and Kokhav Hashahar, and that the theft happened while the sheep were unattended. Jahalin says the police retrieved and returned some after a 16-day investigation.
February 2020
Hilltop Youth raid village, attack 1, as police look on
The man who was attacked with the butt of a rifle.Credit: Screenshot via B'Tselem/YouTube
Five children are inside their family's home in Ras Ein al-Auja. Dozens of settlers, some armed with weapons, some with dogs, enter the tent after harassing a shepherd and his flock grazing nearby. The settlers threatened villagers who came to the children's aid; one man was hit on the head by a settler with a rifle.
According to B'Tselem, whose field researchers documented the attack, "Residents of Ras Ein al-Auja tried to alert four soldiers and two police officers who were standing only about 100 meters away. ... It was not until the incident was drawing to an end, about two hours later, that [the nearby Israeli authorities] approached and told the settlers to leave." No arrests were made.
July 2020
'It is flagrantly illegal, but who cares?'
A compound built as part of the outpost Omer's Farm.Credit: Alex Levac
"Sheep's bells rattle: The shepherds pasture their livestock here behind the hills because they are terrified of the settlers, who chase them away from almost everywhere. Occasionally the military government's Civil Administration also issues demolition orders, and the Bedouin shacks are crushed under the treads of Israeli bulldozers, enforcers of the law."
"The communities of Al-Kaabneh, Rashidiya, Al-Maajath and Ras Ein al-Auja are fighting for their survival here. But no harm will befall the huge ranch in the heart of the flowering valley, with its houses, its fields, its groves and its animals. It is flagrantly illegal, but who cares?" writes Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy.
December 8, 2020
IDF demolishes 7 buildings
A Border Police officer guarding one of the demolitions.Credit: Screenshot via B'Tselem/YouTube
Without prior notice, Israeli authorities dismantle, demolish and seize seven structures – three homes and four livestock enclosures – affecting 45 people.
Weeks later, the UN's Office for Humanitarian Affairs reported that 2020 marked a four-year high in demolitions and seizures of Palestinian property.
May 2021
State tells Civil Administration to legalize Omer's Farm
Naama and Omer Atidiya, the heads of Omer's Farm (Einot Kedem), in 2020. Credit: Alex Levac
The Defense Ministry instructed the Civil Administration to make plans to legalize Omer's Farm, the state told the High Court in response to a petition against the outpost and demands to demolish it, reports Hagar Shezaf.
"The petition was filed by attorney Tawfiq Jabarin in the name of the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust, which owns the land," Shezaf writes. "The state confiscated the land in 1977 by means of a military order, to be used for military purposes. In 1989, the area was allocated to the World Zionist Organization for the establishment of the settlement of Yitav. Later, the outpost of Einot Kedem was established, on land originally intended for cultivation by Yitav."
October 2024
Investigation: How Netanyahu's gov't funds settler terror
Zohar Sabah, left, after being charged with aggravated assault, kidnapping, trespassing and threatening Palestinian residents and Israeli activists in nearby Mu'arrajat in Sept. 2024.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
Hagar Shezaf and Hilo Glazer detail how tens of millions of shekels in public funds are being injected into illegal farm outposts directly by at least six different government ministries, in addition to the local authorities in the West Bank, the World Zionist Organization's Settlement Division and a Jewish National Fund project for troubled youth.
The founders of multiple outposts adjacent to Ras Ein al-Auja figure prominently as examples of violent extremists receiving government funding: Zohar Sabah and Neria Ben Pazi. Both are sanctioned by the United Kingdom, and by the United States until U.S. President Donald Trump lifted the sanctions in January 2025.
January 2025
Settlers pave road between outposts
A far-right settler from a nearby outpost filming solidarity activists and journalists near the village in January 2026.Credit: Itai Ron
After months of construction, a road connecting the outposts of Avishai's Farm and Aira Shahar to the nearby settlement of Kochav Hashahar is paved. Ras Ein al-Auja residents say the new road enabled settlers from nearby outposts to come more easily and frequently to harass villagers.
Parts of the road are on what Israel classifies as "state land" and were paved without authorization from the Civil Administration, which is illegal under Israeli law.
February 10, 2025
Civil Administration: Nearby outposts can graze on state lands
A settler grazing his herd in Ras Ein al-Auja.Credit: Itai Ron
The Civil Administration issues a notice of intent to allot state lands for "herding purposes" around Ras Ein al-Auja; the Israeli NGO Bimkom warned the allotment would "dramatically increase the risk of forcible displacement."
"The official allotment will legally enable settlers to take over the grazing land immediately adjacent to Ras Ein al Auja, giving them grounds to literally sit at the doorstep of the residents they harass and even enter Palestinian homes situated within the area allotted to them," the NGO added.
March 7, 2025
Settlers attack residents, steal 1,400 sheep
A settler from a nearby outpost with a flock of sheep in Ras Ein al-Auja.Credit: Itai Ron
According to a UN OCHA report, "Dozens of Israeli settlers, some armed, attacked Palestinian residents under the protection of Israeli forces. According to eyewitnesses, settlers physically assaulted and injured a Palestinian man, stole approximately 1,400 livestock, killed 12 goats, and damaged at least three houses and several solar panels.
"Additionally, several Israeli settlers broke into the western residential area of the community and attempted to mix their sheep with livestock owned by Palestinians. The Palestinian man who was injured in the incident, attempted to stop the settlers, was restrained by Israeli police while settlers beat him. He was detained and accused of stealing 50 sheep, owned by settlers. After two days, he was released." Reuters also reported on the incident.
May 2025
Ein al-Auja dries up
The dry spring and the Star of David sculpture.Credit: Looking the Occupation in the Eye
Zafrir Rinat reports: "The spring usually dries up once a decade following a drought, but this has always happened in the month of July. This year, the spring dried up in early May, forcing Palestinians to buy water from local suppliers and transport it to the area in tankers.
"Herding communities in the area encountered great difficulty in obtaining water even before, as a result of settlers taking over water sources and repeatedly damaging Palestinian water pumping and storage equipment."
In the weeks prior, a large iron Star of David was erected over the stream, and the site was vandalized with Star of David graffiti.
July 2025
'The last standing Palestinian shepherding community'
Residents of Ras Ein al-Auja marking their sheep in July.Credit: Itai Ron
After the displacement of Mughayyir al-Dir and Mu'arrajat, Hagar Shezaf reports on Ras Ein al-Auja's dire fight for survival:
"Until a few years ago, there were some 20,000 sheep in the village, while today they number just 5,000," one resident tells Shezaf. The decrease was partially due to theft, but also caused by a more widespread trend: the methodical blocking of grazing ground by the military and by settlers.
"People have been selling their sheep in order to have money to buy food for the remaining sheep," he explains.
August 10, 2025
Makeshift outpost erected
A settler praying near a mattress at a makeshift outpost.Credit: Ilia Yefimovich/AFP
A handful of settlers from the nearby outpost Avishai's Farm set up mattresses on the slopes of a hill above houses in the western part of Ras Ein al-Auja. The settlers maintain an around-the-clock presence and bring a flock of goats.
Within five days, the harassment from the settlers essentially camping on the slopes drives Iyad Ka'abneh and his family, who lived about 200 meters away, to evacuate Ras Ein al-Auja and move elsewhere.
October 1, 2025
Outpost built on burned houses
The outpost built atop the remains of burned houses in Ras Ein al-Auja, in October.Credit: Looking the Occupation in the Eye
Hours before the holiday of Yom Kippur began, the settlers squatting on the slopes of the western part of the village descend to the empty houses and begin moving their belongings into the houses. They also begin plowing the land and putting up a livestock pen.
As they plowed, what residents and activists describe as a coordinated attack began. Settlers, each with a herd of sheep, came from four outposts in four different directions and entered Ras Ein al-Auja at once.
December 30, 2025
Settlers attack; police arrest villagers
One of the settlers, who arrived armed and on horseback, during the raid.Credit: Roman Levin
At least 10 settlers, some armed, enter Ras Ein al-Auja with Israeli police and soldiers. An elderly man was accused of throwing stones and was arrested with four other men. All were released later that night. In an op-ed, a Jewish activist who was present recounts the raid:
"During the arrests of the Palestinian villagers, several settlers roamed the village. Most were masked, and one was riding a horse and armed with an assault rifle. At one point, I was alone with one other activist, surrounded by about 10 settlers. The police did not respond to our calls and ignored the clear danger we were in.
"...An entire family was attacked and hospitalized. Watching the Red Crescent evacuate this family served as a potent reminder that the various state forces present were not there to protect anyone but the settlers."
December 31, 2025
Settlers set up camp inside Ras Ein al-Auja
Micha Sudai and Lev Tahor Feierman at a makeshift camp inside Ras Ein al-Auja on December 31.Credit: Looking the Occupation in the Eye
Settlers from the nearby outpost Avishai's Farm deploy the tactic used across the West Banjk to force shepherding communities to leave: They established a new outpost within Ras Ein al-Auja, only 100 meters from a residential neighborhood in the sprawling village.
Israeli solidarity activists reported the new outpost to the Civil Administration; later that day, a Civil Administration officer arrived at the scene and ordered the settlers to stop plowing until the legal status of the land could be clarified, according to court documents.
January 8, 2026
26 families flee Ras Ein al-Auja
Young men dissembling part of Ras Ein al-Auja.Credit: Itai Ron
In the days that follow, a parent with settlers living 100 meters away describes his neighborhood as "effectively under siege, as if in a prison. All areas of life have been harmed: health, food, security, work and the lives of the children."
This family is one of 26 – one-quarter of Ras Ein al-Auja's remaining population – who have decided to pack their belongings, sell flocks of sheep and dismantle their homes. Matan Golan reports:
"One of the men burst into tears next to the truck loaded with his home's contents. 'This is another Nakba,' said his neighbor, Husseini. 'Everyone is leaving for a different area. We've lived here for 40 years, after we were forced to leave Yatta in 1967, but wherever we go they will follow us – they told us that, the settlers.'"
January 15, 2026
High Court rejects interim injunction
The Dec. 31 outpost, marked with a red pin, cuts off one neighborhood from the rest of the village; 20 families have no way to enter or exit Ras Ein al-Auja, let alone a hospital.Credit: Google Maps screenshot
An interim injunction – filed on December 31, after settlers began squatting within the village – was rejected by the High Court, on the grounds that a hearing was already scheduled for February 2.
"I am unable to provide even the most basic needs for my family: There are no medicines, no milk and no diapers for the children," reads a resident's testimony. "In our neighborhood, there are four small children who need milk and diapers, and we have no ability to provide this."
"The motion for a temporary order presents a worrying picture. However, it is doubtful whether it justifies the granting of a temporary remedy ordering the 'evacuation of an outpost extension,'" judge Gila Canfy-Steinitz wrote in the court decision. "Due to the upcoming date set for the hearing of the petition, I have not seen fit to grant the motion" to evacuate the outpost.
January 16, 2016
Solidarity activists protest to save Ras Ein al-Auja
An Israeli activist holding Hebrew signs at the protest that read: "Stop the settler terror" and "From the river to the sea, rights and freedom for everyone."Credit: John Wessels/AFP
Religious Zionism lawmaker Tzvi Succot interrupts a protest by roughly 200 left-wing Israelis rallying against the ongoing displacement of Ras Ein al-Auja. Succot claims the community "the residents were not expelled – they are leaving because Mekorot [Israel's national water company] cut off their water."
However, Ras Ein al-Auja was never connected to the formal water supply. Police and army eventually escort the far-right MK out.
January 25, 2026
Last families leave Ras Ein al-Auja
Ras Ein al-Auja residents torched belongings left behind to prevent the nearby outposts from taking them.Credit: Itai Ron
The remaining families of Ras Ein al-Auja, mostly concentrated in the eastern part of the village, load their belongings into trucks.
Matan Golan reports that as families abandoned the village, settlers chose to graze their sheep between the vacant houses despite the lush, extensive pastures surrounding the village.
"I didn't think we would leave, but we left because of the settlers," Naif Ghawanmeh tells Golan beside the ruins of his home, where he had lived for 45 years and raised his children. "If you touch a settler, you're arrested. If you push a settler's flock, you're arrested. But a settler is allowed to do whatever he wants, and he is not arrested for anything. Security serves one side – the settlers' side."
February 2, 2026
State tells High Court: We can't protect Palestinians from settlers
High Court justices at the hearing, from left: Alex Stein, West Bank resident Noam Sohlberg and Gila Canfy-Steinitz.Credit: Oren Ben Hakoon
Matan Golan reports on the High Court hearing of the petition filed in March 2025 on behalf of Ras Ein al-Auja. At the heart of the petition was the residents' request for court orders prohibiting Israelis from the village's houses and providing protection to end the threats, theft and harassment, including prevention of grazing.
The counsel for the state told the court that a plan for Ras Ein al-Auja's return could be drawn up if it is coordinated in advance. He added, however, that the brigade commander in the area had determined there was no justification for an order closing it to Israelis, citing factors such as the terrain and the severity of the friction between settlers and residents.
The High Court ruled Israel must enable the Palestinian residents' return to a "defined part of the community" and to submit an update within 60 days on what had been done to enable their return.
April 10, 2026
'We have returned to the spring!'
The graffiti at Ein al-Auja on April 10 – "We have returned to the spring!" – a lyric from "Jerusalem of Gold."Credit: Itai Ron
A return unfolds, according to far-right Hilltop News chats and the blue-and-white graffiti of the side of the waterslide at Ein al-Auja spring. Matan Golan reports that hundreds of Israelis celebrated days off during Passover at the spring.
"We haven't been here for 20 years. We came to see history," one woman says.
"You don't understand what they're doing here, what a job they're doing. There's no fear anymore. No fear," one man says to another.
April 20, 2026
High Court: Come back in a month
An Israeli soldier guarding settlers during Independence Day celebrations at Ain al-Auja spring on April 22.Credit: Ilia Yefimovich/AFP
A High Court hearing in the case of Ras Ein al-Auja's 120 dispersed families focuses on wartime technicalities, related to when exactly the state must file a progress report.
The hearing did not clarify any practical steps the state has taken to facilitate residents' return since the last session; the court ruled the state's next update must be submitted by May 14.
Two days later, settlers and their children swarmed Ein al-Auja spring to celebrate Israel's Independence Day with swimming, barbecues, picnics and M-16s.
Right: Ethnic cleansing in real time: Ras Ein al-Auja fleeing on January 25.Credit: Itai Ron
Even if the High Court rules in favor of Ras Ein al-Auja, there's no guarantee that the village's 120 families will ever be able to move back.
After all, the High Court has also ordered the state to facilitate the return of communities that were forcibly displaced post-October 7, including Wadi as-Seeq and Mu'arrajat, both less than 17 km (10 miles) from Ras Ein al-Auja.
The bureaucracy frustrates Jahalin, the 50-year-old father of 10. "The court says, 'Why are you being displaced? Why are you being expelled from the violence of the settlers?' for two years now, and no one has heard us."
Israeli families partake in swimming, picnics, advocating for the Third Temple movement and other holiday fun at Ein al-Auja on April 10. Photos: Itai Ron
He says the last few years have taken a toll on him, and that he, like most people he knows from Ras Ein al-Auja, experience psychological distress. Jahalin has not only lost his house and his village, but his livelihood. His sheep were stolen, and sometimes killed, by settlers, and others starved from losing access to grazing lands.
He remains sleep-deprived; he was among the men that began staying up through the night on watch duty in groups. Since 2024, "I didn't sleep or rest, neither at night nor during the day. And you have a family, work, and settlers... I mean, it's a mess, my God."
Israeli Independence Day celebrations at Ras Ein al-Auja on April 22, less than five months after 120 families were forcibly displaced. Photos: Ilia Yefimovich/AFP
Nagham Zbeedat contributed to reporting.