Israeli settlers attack West Bank Bedouins

A Palestinian Bedouin family was forced to flee their central West Bank home after a campaign of harassment from Israeli settlers, according to Al-Monitor via AFP on December 4th.

Settlers reportedly constructed a shack roughly 100 metres above the home of Ahmed Kaabneh and started intimidating the 45-year-old’s children.

Kaabneh’s family was forced to flee, a decision he described as “very difficult, because you leave an area where you lived for 45 years. Not a day or two or three, but nearly a lifetime.”

The family has constructed a makeshift home in the rocky hills north of Jericho, approximately 13 kilometres (eight miles) northeast of their original home in the al-Hathrura region.

This is not the first time a Bedouin community has been attacked by settlers, as in July, 117 sheep were killed, and hundreds of animals were stolen when settlers launched a raid in the Arab al-Kaabaneh Bedouin community in the Jordan Valley.

Settlers frequently target Palestinian communities, including Bedouins, across the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem for intimidation and violence, reportedly with the aim of displacing the Palestinian population and building Jewish-only settlements.

An estimated 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with the number expected to grow with the E1 settlement plan to annex 82% of the West Bank and build 3,400 homes for settlers.

Palestinian residents face displacement through a range of methods, including arson attacks, the destruction of homes and the confiscation of land.

Water supplies for Palestinian villages were reportedly sabotaged by settlers in July, with attacks on water distribution areas, wells and pipes being carried out in an effort to make life virtually unliveable for Palestinians.

In November, at least two settlement outposts were established in the West Bank, with settlers using bulldozers to set up and expand an outpost, according to reports on November 13th.

More than 100 new settlements have been constructed by Israel in the West Bank, with some resembling small towns with apartment blocks and parks.

Despite settlement expansion being illegal under international law, the Israeli government seemingly encourages the settlement of Jewish people on Palestinian land by attempting to make it easier for Jewish settlers to purchase West Bank land.

The push for more settlers is likely part of a broader effort to maintain a Jewish demographic majority in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Al-Monitor via AFP, Maghrebi.org