The West Bank villages wiped off the map by Israeli settler violence
Since October 7, over 50 rural Palestinian communities have been forced to abandon their homes amid intensifying attacks, threats, and harassment by Israeli settlers — almost always with the backing of the army and police.
The ruins of a building destroyed by settlers in the displaced Palestinian village of Khalet Khader, occupied West Bank. (Oren Ziv)
Several weeks before October 7, +972 Magazine published an investigation into the seizure by Israeli settlers of a vast area of the occupied West Bank, stretching east from Ramallah to the outskirts of Jericho. Through the establishment of an array of new settler outposts and sustained harassment of Palestinian shepherding communities, which was often ignored or actively facilitated by the Israeli army, settlers managed to expel virtually all the Palestinians living in an area measuring approximately 150 square kilometers.
In that investigation, we reported on the forcible displacement of four shepherding communities within a period of four years, totaling several hundred people. But over the past 14 months since the Gaza war began, what was already a dramatic process of ethnic cleansing has accelerated exponentially.
According to new data gathered by the left-wing Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, which monitors Israel’s dispossession of Palestinian land in the West Bank, at least 57 Palestinian communities have been forced to flee their homes since October 7 as a result of Israeli settler attacks. Of these, seven have been partially displaced — meaning the expulsion of at least one residential cluster, located several hundred meters away from the next — and 50 have been wiped off the map entirely.
Most of the displacement has been concentrated in four areas: the northern Jordan Valley, east of Ramallah, southeast of Bethlehem, and the South Hebron Hills. “Unsurprisingly, most new outposts have been established in these areas,” Etkes explained. “There is a direct link between their establishment and the rise in violence [against Palestinians].”
Kerem Navot and another left-wing Israeli NGO, Peace Now, estimate that since October 2023, at least 41 illegal settler outposts and herding farms have been established in the West Bank. At least 10 of these were built in close proximity to Palestinian communities that were subsequently forced to flee their lands. In addition, settlers have set up “observation posts” or planted Israeli flags in areas abandoned by Palestinians in order to prevent them from returning.
“Expelling [Palestinian] communities has helped the settlers take over hundreds of thousands of dunams of grazing and agricultural land,” Etkes said — all of which is done “with the backing of the Israeli army and police. Even if the state does not officially declare it, it permits it. This cannot happen in so many communities without [the assistance of] the military.”
In some cases, the army has been documented playing an active role in the displacement. According to multiple Palestinian testimonies, settlers who in the past would harass them while dressed in civilian clothes now arrive armed and in military uniform — part of a growing phenomenon of settlers abusing their role as army reservists amid the ongoing war in Gaza. They carry out violent raids, enter homes, steal livestock, and even conduct arrests, including of Israeli and international activists who come to support vulnerable Palestinian communities.
“You definitely see it recurring,” Etkes told +972. “The army is aware and participates, whether it’s regular soldiers or settler militiamen and ‘area defense’ personnel who operate under the [aegis of the] army.”
These attacks usually occur within what is known as Area C of the West Bank, the roughly 60 percent of the territory in which the Israeli military exercises direct civil and security control. Around half a million Israeli settlers — all of those dwelling illegally in the West Bank — live in these regions, alongside approximately 300,000 Palestinians. While settlements and outposts expand freely onto privately-owned Palestinian land, Israel’s Civil Administration — the arm of the military responsible for administering the occupation — bans the vast majority of construction in Palestinian communities in Area C.
The result, illustrated by the testimonies below from seven villages across the West Bank, has been the expulsion of dozens of Palestinian shepherding communities, enabling further expansion of Israeli settlements and outposts onto their lands.
Umm Al-Jamal: ‘They bring settlers to break the residents’ spirit’
In the scorching heat of late August, Nabil Daraghmeh sat alone outside his home in the shepherding community of Umm Al-Jamal, in the northern Jordan Valley. A few days earlier, nearly all of the community’s residents — around 100 men, women, and children — had fled after settlers descended on the community from an outpost they had established nearby earlier that same week. They entered homes, photographed residents, and made false complaints against them to the Israeli authorities.
In the past, residents of Umm Al-Jamal could largely withstand the settlers’ harassment. But since the war began, the sharp uptick in violence has forced them to flee their lands and relocate to an area where settler attacks are scarcer. Daraghmeh was the last resident remaining. “I said I’m staying here and not leaving,” he told +972.
Nabil Daraghmeh, the last remaining resident of Umm Al-Jamal, Jordan Valley, occupied West Bank. (Oren Ziv)
At night, the 51-year-old father of nine had begun sleeping on the roof of his house to protect himself from settler attacks. “After everyone left, young children of settlers came to me and said, ‘It’s a waste of time, get out of here.’ I told them, ‘I’ve been here for 20 years, and you arrived yesterday — you can’t tell me to get out of here.’ They said if I didn’t leave of my own accord, they’d kick me out.”
Daraghmeh highlighted a new tactic that is becoming increasingly common across the West Bank: “A settler comes and photographs the [Palestinian’s] herd, and then turns to the army and the police and says it belongs to him and the Palestinian stole it from him.”
Immediately after the new outpost was established near Umm Al-Jamal, settlers came and started taking photos. “They were concentrating on the sheep,” Daraghmeh explained. “We saw that it happened in Ras Ein Al-Auja [another Palestinian community nearby], where 150 sheep were taken. People know what happens when the sheep are photographed, they know that in the morning [the settlers] will bring the police and army and say, ‘This is mine.’”
The Israeli outpost near the community was established on Aug. 12. By the morning of Aug. 16, the Palestinian residents had already packed their belongings, dismantled their tents, gathered their flocks, and fled. “This is happening throughout the West Bank — it’s policy,” Daraghmeh said. “They bring the settlers to break the residents’ spirit.”
Al-Farisiya: ‘Settlers, the army, and the police work together’
Residents of the shepherding community of Al-Farisiya began fleeing their homes soon after the war began. Today, roughly 30 families are still holding on, in a residential cluster called Ein Ghazal. Left-wing Israeli activists come to provide a sense of security, but the activists and residents all know that if the settlers decide to act with full force, there is little they could do.
“Since the beginning of the war, settlers, the army, and the police have been working together toward the same goal: expelling the residents and taking over the area,” Ahmed Abu Hussein, 38, explained.
“The village was closed off from all directions,” he continued. “Every day, [settlers] come to the area, abuse the sheep, and force their way into homes. In September, soldiers came to dismantle and confiscate the security cameras we’d placed with the help of organizations and activists, in order to provide some protection for the community.”
In footage from July, the settler Didi Amusi from the nearby Tene Yarok outpost, an extension of the Rotem settlement, can be heard declaring that he would establish an observation post overlooking the community. According to Abu Hussein, there are now seven settler outposts between the settlement of Mehola and the nearby Palestinian community of Ein Al-Hilweh.
The loss of grazing areas since the start of war has meant that Abu Hussein, like other Palestinian shepherds in the region, has had to buy more food for his flock, increasing his financial burden. “In Tayasir [a village in Area B, where many of the communities displaced from the Jordan Valley have fled], they also have to buy food, but there’s a little more security there because there are no settlers around,” he said.
Fathu Sedru: ‘I’m scared for the small children’
Shepherding communities in the southern West Bank describe similar ordeals. The residents of Fathu Sedru, a community located near the settlement of Carmel, were able to graze land in the area until two years ago, when the Israeli settler Shimon Atiya established an outpost called Havat Shorashim (“Roots Farm”).
An observation post that forms an extension of Shimon Atiya’s outpost, Havat Shorashim, near the village of Fathu Sedru, South Hebron Hills, occupied West Bank. (Oren Ziv)
Since the outbreak of the war, their situation has worsened significantly. Today, only one family of 14 remains in the village after two other families fled. One of their homes has since been destroyed by settlers.
“On October 7, the settlers started a war here,” Farid Hamamdeh, one of the remaining residents of Fathu Sedru, told +972. “They cut down about 100 trees, and beat my brothers and I. In the months that followed, there were dozens of attacks. Sometimes they came three times a day, always from Shimon’s outpost.”
Hamamdeh recalls how, before the war, the Civil Administration informally divided the grazing areas between the Israeli settlers and the Palestinians. Since then, however, settlers from the nearby outpost have taken over the entire area. “Shimon says that the area we live in is Israeli territory, [that] everything is Israeli.”
Atiya, he said, often comes in IDF uniform and claims to be there on behalf of the army. “We call the police, but they don’t come. But when I go into Israeli [grazing] territory, they all come.”
Hamamdeh was arrested twice this past August after being harassed by settlers from the outpost. “Shimon came to the house, and I tried to block the door but two of them made their way inside. One of them hit me on the hand and said I had hit him. I didn’t get a good [camera] shot of it. Then the police came, [after] I called them, and they said I had assaulted him. Am I crazy? Attacking [someone] and then calling the police?”
Hamamdeh described his time in jail as extremely difficult. “It was seven days, but it felt like 70. We were taken out into the yard handcuffed and blindfolded. They banged my head against the doorframe until I bled. I was taken to a doctor who gave me two handkerchiefs to clean the blood and nothing else. They gave me clothes that were too small. I came out of prison as if I had come back from death.”
Hamamdeh said that while he had no intention of leaving his home, the escalating settler violence left him and his family deeply worried. “This is our land, my father’s, my grandfather’s. But the settlers have no God. I’m scared for the small children.”
Farid Hamamdeh with his children in Fathu Sedru, South Hebron Hills, occupied West Bank. (Oren Ziv)
Umm Darit: ‘When we call the police, they tell us we’re liars’
In the community of Umm Darit, located in the region of Masafar Yatta, one Palestinian family lives sandwiched between the outpost of Mitzpe Yair and the settlement of Avigayil, which was recently legalized. After being driven out of their land at the start of the war, the Abed family managed to return in March thanks to a continual presence of international activists.
Like in other communities across the West Bank, settlers and soldiers erected an arbitrary blockade near the family’s home, cutting off access to their trees, seasonal crops, and water wells. Then came the attack.
“On Oct. 20 [2023], a group of settlers dressed in military uniforms came and forced us out of the house,” Mohammed Abed, 60, told +972. “They had us sit outside for four hours, while they broke everything. After they finished, one of them came up to me and said, ‘If you sleep here at night, we’ll kill you.’ So we went to [the nearby village of] Sha’b Al-Butum. Every morning I went back home, and at night slept in Sha’b Al-Butum.
“At the beginning of Ramadan in March, after [we] came back, they started to harass us again,” Abed continued. “In April, settlers dressed in military uniform told us that if we crossed a certain tree, they would either arrest us, kill us, or cut off our hands. We told them it was our land. They said it all belonged to Avigayil.”
Since then, settlers dressed in military uniforms have routinely encroached on the family’s land. In one case, they set a vehicle on fire. “If the settlers see that [international activists] are leaving, they immediately bring their sheep to eat our crops,” Abed said. “When we call the police, they tell us we’re liars. We have footage, but it doesn’t bother them.”
Mohammed Abed stands beside a car burned by settlers in Umm Darit, South Hebron Hills, occupied West Bank. (Oren Ziv)
To protect their property, the residents secured the community’s ancient cistern with a tightly-locked door and installed three security cameras aimed at it. Several times, settlers, mostly teenagers, came and sat on the porch of the family house for a few hours. “They said they wanted coffee next time,” Abed recounted.
Nearby, on the way to the adjacent village of At-Tuwani, settlers set up a gate to further restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement. “Everything you see has happened since the war started,” Abed said. “Before the war, we could go to [the villages of] Mufagarah, At-Tuwani, Khalet Al-Daba; the area was open. Now they’re not letting us through. The war was their opportunity.”
Khirbet Zanuta: ‘There is a plan to kick out as many communities as possible’
The community of Khirbet Zanuta, located in the southernmost part of the West Bank, is one of the largest to have been displaced since the start of the war, comprising 27 families totaling some 300 people. In November 2023, residents were forced to flee following repeated attacks by settlers from the nearby Havat Meitarim outpost. That outpost, along with its founder, Yinon Levy, were subsequently sanctioned by the Biden administration.
The residents petitioned the High Court of Justice to allow them to return to the village and receive protection, and in July, their efforts bore fruit: the court ruled that the state must allow the residents to return, in coordination with the military and with the protection of the police and the army.
Despite the state’s commitment to the court to protect the Palestinian residents, the settlers’ harassment continued unabated. Every day, settlers entered the community, walked among the houses, and photographed the residents to provoke them. After one such invasion, residents called the police. The officer who arrived declared that “both sides are allowed to be there.”
Israeli settlers harass Palestinian residents of Khirbet Zanuta, South Hebron Hills, occupied West Bank. (Oren Ziv)
On Sept. 9, Levy entered the village wearing a shirt emblazoned with the insignia of Hashomer Yosh — another organization sanctioned by the United States in August — and stole a sheep that he claimed originally belonged to him. The police officers and soldiers who arrived at the scene not only allowed Levy to take the sheep, but arrested one of the residents. (The sheep was returned to the Palestinians a month later.)
In a video filmed after the arrest, Levy is heard saying, “Most of this land is mine.” When told that the police officer at the scene had said it was private Palestinian land, Levy said: “He doesn’t know … He must have made a mistake.”
A few days later, the majority of residents abandoned the village once more, unable to withstand the constant harassment. Some remained for a little while in an area across the road, known as North Zanuta, but were forced out of there too by the end of the month.
Quamar Mishirqi-Assad, a lawyer representing the residents, filed a motion for contempt of court on the grounds that the Israeli authorities failed to abide by the court’s ruling and protect the residents from the settlers, which forced them to leave their land again.
“The settlers attacked the residents and their sheep, and threatened them,” she told +972. “In addition, residents were not allowed to rebuild, or even to put up a shading cloth, on the grounds that it is an archaeological site. So although the authorities committed to [allow the Palestinian residents to] return, they are not allowed basic living conditions.
“The right-wing agenda has permeated — the army is carrying it out,” Mishirqi-Assad continued. “They treat the people of Zanuta as if they are residents of an illegal outpost, even though they have admitted that they lived in caves [on the village’s land] for years, and that they have rights and documents [proving it].
“It just goes to show that there is a plan to kick out as many communities as possible under the auspices of ‘security reasons,’ and this has intensified after October 2023,” she added. “Otherwise, I can’t understand why the people of Zanuta can’t [be allowed to] return.”
A Palestinian shepherd grazes his flock on the lands of Zanuta, South Hebron Hills, occupied West Bank. (Oren Ziv)
According to Mishirqi-Assad, the initial success of the residents’ legal struggle made it particularly important for settlers to ensure that the Palestinian residents are driven away for good. “Their return gave people hope,“ she said. “There was a precedent here. It’s a big community, it has a significant impact. The fall of Zanuta led to the fall of more villages and the expulsion of more communities.”
In an indication of Israeli authorities’ attitude toward the community’s legal status, the Civil Administration referred to Zanuta as a “Palestinian outpost” in a statement to +972. It is worth noting in this context that the Civil Administration does not enforce building violations in the nearby Havat Meitarim outpost, even though all of its structures were built illegally under Israeli law.
Al-Muarrajat: ‘It looked like they wanted to kill’
The community of Al-Muarrajat lies near Jericho, abutting an area of 150 square kilometers that settlers emptied of Palestinians prior to the war. According to Kerem Navot, settlers have established around 20 illegal herding outposts in this area in recent years; one of them, a sub-outpost of a farm belonging to the radical settler Neria Ben Pazi (also sanctioned by the United States), was erected right beside Al-Muarrajat.
Before the war, residents were targeted by settlers from nearby outposts, who prevented them from crossing the road toward the community of Ras Ein Al-Auja to graze. Since October 7, the situation has only worsened, with settlers often descending on the town and walking between the houses to intimidate residents, as well as poisoning the community’s sheep. As a result of the intensification of attacks, at least one residential cluster in the center of the village fled soon after the war started.
In mid-September, settlers attacked the village’s school as some of the children hid in the classrooms, crying for help. Footage of the attackshows settlers, some of them masked, storming the school with clubs as students flee. Several teachers were wounded in the attack. When the Israeli authorities arrived, they arrested the school’s principal.
A photo shows the damage left by settlers after they attacked the school in Al-Muarrajat, Jordan Valley, occupied West Bank. (Oren Ziv)
In an extremely rare occurrence, the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office filed indictments against five settlers, including Zohar Sabah — the owner of the nearby farm, who the United States sanctioned in November — and two minors, for their involvement in the attacks.
Awtan Al-Malihat, a 33-year-old mother of six, told +972 that some of her children were in the school during the attack. “I went there to get the kids. The settlers had clubs, they didn’t even cover their faces. They just beat us, without talking. It was a serious assault; it looked like they wanted to kill.”
After the attack, Al-Malihat’s children refused to go back to school. “They said they were afraid there would be another attack, but I told the older daughter to take her little sister and be around her all day,” she said.
“There is no security here,” Al-Malihat continued. “If there are activists, [the settlers] don’t attack us. But when they’re not here, the settlers know and come to make trouble. They want to expel us — not only here, but everywhere. But we have been living here for a long time, and we have nowhere else. This is our land, we will not leave.”
Aaliyah Malihat, a 28-year-old communications student from the community, described how the settlers’ terror against the village has intensified since the war began: “They attack residents day and night. The army and police come with them, taking sheep, arresting people, even opening fire. We don’t know who to turn to for protection.
“We’ve lived here for decades, and the school has existed for 40 years,” she continued. “The settlers decided a year ago to take over the school and the nearby spring because they know that these are the most important things in the village — and if they take them, the residents will leave.”
Aaliyah Malihat in her home in Al-Muarrajat, Jordan Valley, occupied West Bank. (Oren Ziv)
Schools in Palestinian communities in the West Bank are often targeted by settlers and right-wing organizations. In 2021, the settler organization Regavim published a report claiming that the establishment of schools was part of a Palestinian plan to take over territory in Area C.
Wadi As-Siq: ‘We were under siege’
A few kilometers up the mountain from Al-Muarrajat lies Wadi As-Siq, whose residents were expelled in the first days of the war. The community, which settlers marked for expulsion even before the war, is located next to the area that was already ethnically cleansed by the summer of 2023.
B., a father of nine who asked to remain anonymous for fear of settler retribution, told +972 that the problems started in February 2023, when the aforementioned settler Neria Ben Pazi established an outpost a few hundred meters from the local school. “From the day the settlers arrived, they made life difficult. As did the army. At school, on the roads, on the pastures, in the fields, and in the wells — there were problems. After the expulsion, the problems only got worse.”
In the summer of 2023, Israeli and Palestinian activists maintained a protective presence to prevent the expulsion of residents. After the war began and attacks intensified, however, residents began to flee. During this time, settlers and soldiers raided the community, kidnapping and severely abusing Palestinian and Israeli activists, including sexually — an incident that prompted the closure of the Israeli army’s Desert Frontier unit, whose soldiers were involved in the abuse.
“The last days in the village, from Oct. 7 to 11, were difficult,” B. said. “Roads were blocked, attacks were carried out near our home, and we were prevented from bringing water and food for the animals. We were under siege.”
Members of the community have since dispersed. Some relocated to Area B, near the communities of Taybeh and Rammun in the central West Bank. B. initially moved into a tent in an open area nearby, from which he can see his old home as well as Ben Pazi’s outpost. “I saw the village every day, but I wish I didn’t. It’s mentally difficult,” he said.
A Palestinian man looks out from a tent over the lands of Wadi As-Siq, occupied West Bank. (Oren Ziv)
“In Wadi As-Siq, we had land for grazing and sowing, we had good houses, and water in wells,” he continued. “We had 1,500 dunams [around 370 acres], a school, and an access road. After the expulsion, we don’t have anything. We don’t have a house. I only have a tent to sleep in at night. There is no water and no grazing area, and barley for sheep is expensive so we can’t buy any. There’s no work so there’s no money, even to send the little ones to school.”
As with other communities, the expulsion has dismantled the social fabric of the community. “Our neighbors are gone — we meet only on happy occasions and holidays,” B. explained. “In Wadi As-Siq, we sat together every night in a different house. The distance between us was 50 meters. Now it’s 3-4 kilometers.”
Today, B. and his family live on the outskirts of Rammun, opposite an illegal landfill where garbage is burned. They managed to send the children to a local school only after activists raised the annual tuition fee of NIS 800 (around $220) per student. The family are still afraid to go out to graze in the area: “If we go far, they will take our sheep, as they did in Zanuta.”
After B. learned that the residents of Zanuta returned to their homes in August, he was hopeful the same could happen in Wadi As-Siq. “But we heard they wanted to leave [again, due to renewed settler harassment], so hope was gone.”
A spokesperson for Israel’s Civil Administration declined to respond to an inquiry from +972 regarding how it is working to protect the Palestinian residents of Area C. The spokesperson responded only to our question about Zanuta, where it claims to be “working to maintain security and order” despite residents having been forced to flee once again after their legally mandated return. An Israeli army spokesperson responded similarly: “In cases of violence, the relevant authorities can be contacted and the matter will be examined.”
Oren Ziv is a photojournalist, reporter for Local Call, and a founding member of the Activestills photography collective.
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