DaysofPal – In the village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the Jericho governorate in the eastern West Bank, 45-year-old Naif Ghawanmeh sits quietly by a fire as the music fades and the night gets chilly. For the first time in weeks, there is a brief moment of stillness; the Israeli settlers’ celebrations nearby have ended for the night.
But the silence only highlights what has been lost.
Ras Ein al-Auja, once one of the last remaining Palestinian Bedouin herding communities in this part of the Jordan Valley, has been nearly wiped out. Its sheep are gone, most stolen or poisoned by settlers, others sold under relentless pressure. The village’s water source, the Ras Ein spring that once sustained life and livelihoods, has been declared off-limits by neighboring settlers for over a year.
Over the past two weeks, most of the community’s homes have been dismantled. Families forced to flee burned their own furniture before leaving, refusing to allow settlers to use what little they had left behind.
“By God, it’s a difficult feeling,” Ghawanmeh says quietly, rubbing his face in exhaustion. “Everyone left. Not one of them remains.”
Since the beginning of the year, around 450 of the village’s 650 residents have fled, many from the only home they have ever known, due to escalating settler violence. Apart from 14 Ghawanmeh families, many with young children and nowhere else to go, the remaining residents are preparing to leave in the coming days.
This mass displacement marks the largest expulsion of a single Bedouin community caused by Israeli settler violence in modern times. For settlers, it has been met with celebration. For Palestinians, it has meant the destruction of shelter, livelihoods, and community.
No Land, No Water, No Safety
Until recently, Ras Ein al-Auja’s residents endured constant physical assaults, theft, intimidation, movement restrictions, and destruction of property, conditions increasingly common across rural Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.
Settler violence has been enabled by the rapid expansion of settlement outposts, all illegal under international law. Though many are built without formal authorization, they are largely tolerated and protected by Israeli forces, particularly under the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
International law prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into occupied territory. Yet around 700,000 Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank. In December, Israel retroactively legalized 19 previously unauthorized outposts. Since 2022, the number of settlements and outposts in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem has surged by nearly 50 percent.
An especially dangerous development has been the rise of “shepherding outposts.” These are typically run by armed settlers, often assisted by armed teenagers recruited through government-funded programs. Using grazing flocks as a tool for land seizure, these settlers encroach on Palestinian pasturelands, forcing shepherds off their land.
By April 2024, such outposts had taken control of roughly 14 percent of the West Bank, according to the Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, a figure that has since increased significantly.
In Ras Ein al-Auja, these outposts became launchpads for attacks, movement restrictions, and army-coordinated arrests. Livestock, the backbone of Bedouin life, was routinely stolen or poisoned. Remaining shepherds were blocked from grazing lands and forced to buy expensive fodder to keep their animals alive.
Basic resources were also targeted. Like most Palestinian communities in Area C, Ras Ein al-Auja was denied access to electricity. Solar panels installed by residents were repeatedly destroyed by settlers. Water access was cut off, even from the springs that once made the village prosperous.
“They prevented us from getting water,” Ghawanmeh says. “They prevented us from bringing the sheep to the spring.”
Near-Total Impunity
Settler violence has been emboldened by widespread impunity and mass arming initiatives launched under Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Prosecutions are rare, and accountability even rarer.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 1,800 settler attacks were recorded in the West Bank in 2025, an average of five per day. These attacks affected around 280 communities. That same year, 240 Palestinians, including 55 children, were killed by Israeli forces or settlers.
Such levels of violence and deprivation have erased dozens of rural Palestinian communities. Since the war on Gaza began in October 2023, settler violence has forced the displacement of at least 44 Palestinian communities, uprooting 2,701 people—nearly half of them children.
“These numbers haven’t been seen in decades,” rights groups warn.
‘Two Years of Psychological Pressure’
For more than two years, Ras Ein al-Auja endured relentless pressure. Settler outposts crept ever closer to homes, surrounding the village.
“Two years of psychological pressure at night,” Ghawanmeh says. “If you sleep, the settlers will burn your house.”
The community’s sheep dwindled from 24,000 to fewer than 3,000. Attacks became so frequent that solidarity activists maintained a round-the-clock protective presence. Still, the pressure mounted.
Earlier this year, settlers erected an outpost directly inside the village, next to Palestinian homes.
“Life completely stopped,” Ghawanmeh says.
One by one, families fled. Nearly three-quarters of the community is now gone, scattered across the West Bank, mostly in overcrowded towns under Palestinian Authority administration. With them goes a centuries-old Bedouin way of life.
“To leave your house, your village, it’s very, very difficult,” Ghawanmeh says. “But we are forced to.”
Songs for the Children
As the village empties, two musicians arrive to offer brief relief. Inside a tin shack, children gather to hear Palestinian folk songs. For a moment, they clap, sing, and smile.
“These songs are for the children,” Ghawanmeh says softly. “We are tired inside.”
As night falls, the fire burns what little remains, supplies the families refuse to leave behind.
“Even if you sing for me until tomorrow, I won’t be happy,” Ghawanmeh says. “For two years, I’ve suffered oppression, hardship, day and night. I’m tired inside.”
Ras Ein al-Auja, once alive with herding, water, and community, is now another village pushed toward erasure, its people displaced, its land seized, and its silence echoing across the Jordan Valley.
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