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Al Mayadeen
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Al Mayadeen
Rising settler violence in West Bank sparks Palestinian uprising calls
Settler attacks are escalating across the occupied West Bank as part of the Israeli occupation's ongoing efforts to annex Palestinian territory. These incursions are taking place under direct military protection and with full political backing from the Israeli government, according to rights groups and local sources. On Saturday, settler bulldozers resumed land leveling operations in the town of Raba, southeast of Jenin, to expand control over the surrounding area. Meanwhile, in the northern Jordan Valley, settlers transported mobile homes to the Qa'oun Plain near Bardala, moves widely seen as preparation for a new illegal outpost. Additionally, settlers pitched tents on the western outskirts of Deir Istiya, a village already under intense pressure due to nearby settlements, in Salfit Governorate. Local sources report that nine settlements and two grazing outposts have already been established in the area, posing an existential threat to Palestinian residents. In another alarming development, settlers stormed the village of Shalla al-Auja, northeast of Areeha (Jericho), and unleashed livestock into residential neighborhoods and farmlands, damaging pastures and crops. The Al-Baydar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights confirmed the incident and warned that such daily settler incursions are systematically displacing Palestinian communities. Hassan Mleihat, coordinator for Al-Baydar, stated that the attacks are taking place 'under the protection of the Israeli military,' leaving communities vulnerable and without effective protection mechanisms. These actions, he noted, are fueling instability and fear in already isolated and marginalized regions. The targeted areas, particularly in the Jordan Valley and northern West Bank, are seen as strategic to the occupation's broader annexation policy, designed to encircle Palestinian towns, seize farmland, and fracture territorial contiguity. In response to the violence, Palestinian factions have called for mass mobilization and popular resistance. Hamas urged the reactivation of local protection committees and described the wave of settler assaults as "crimes committed under direct military cover." Moreover, Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi condemned the daily raids by what he termed "settler gangs," saying they reflect "the true face of a criminal entity that knows only destruction and death." He also criticized the Palestinian Authority for its continued security coordination with the occupation, calling it a form of complicity. Mardawi called for "comprehensive resistance" as a national response to stop "Israel's" annexation agenda and systemic displacement. Fatah also condemned recent settler attacks, accusing armed settler militias of carrying out a massacre in the town of Sinjil, northeast of Ramallah. The assault killed two young men, Saif al-Din Musallat, a Palestinian-American citizen, and Mohammad al-Shalabi, and left dozens injured. The movement said the killings are part of an organized campaign of ethnic cleansing orchestrated by "Israel's" far-right government and implemented by settler militias under military cover, calling for the prosecution of Israeli officials and militias in international courts, and demanding that the US government take responsibility for the death of its citizens. Palestinian factions and rights groups describe the uptick in settler violence as part of a coordinated annexation strategy backed by the Israeli government. The expansion of illegal settlements and settler-only roads, combined with the daily terrorizing of Palestinian communities, fits into what many now describe as a policy of forced displacement and de facto ethnic cleansing. With the West Bank increasingly destabilized and international outrage mounting, calls are growing louder for foreign governments and international legal bodies to take action against settler militias and the Israeli officials enabling them.
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Dozens of Palestinian Bedouin families flee Israeli violence in West Bank
At least 50 Palestinian families from a Bedouin community in the occupied West Bank have fled their homes, following repeated assaults and harassment from Israeli settlers under the protection of Israeli forces, according to media reports and a local rights group. Thirty Palestinian families were forcibly displaced on Friday morning from the Arab Mleihat Bedouin community, northwest of Jericho, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, while 20 others were displaced on Thursday. Before the forced displacement, the community was home to 85 families, numbering about 500 people. A Palestinian rights group, the Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, said the families were forced to leave after years trying to defend themselves 'without any support'. Attacks by Israeli forces and Israelis from illegal settlements have surged across the occupied West Bank since Israel's war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023. Alia Mleihat told Wafa that her family was forced to flee to the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp, south of Jericho, after armed settlers threatened her and other families at gunpoint. Separately, Mahmoud Mleihat, a 50-year-old father of seven from the community, told the Reuters news agency that they could not take it any more, so they decided to leave. 'The settlers are armed and attack us, and the [Israeli] military protects them. We can't do anything to stop them,' he said. Hassan Mleihat, director of the Al-Baidar Organization, said families in the community began dismantling their tents, following sustained provocation and attacks by Israeli settlers and the army. Footage posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera's Sanad agency showed trucks loaded with possessions driving away from the area at night. Hassan told Wafa that the attacks also threatened to erase the community, and 'open the way for illegal colonial expansion'.Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has documented repeated acts of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in Mu'arrajat, near Jericho, where the Mleihat tribe lives. In 2024, settlers armed with clubs stormed a Palestinian school, while in 2023, armed settlers blocked the path of vehicles carrying Palestinians, with some firing into the air and others hurling stones at the vehicles. 'We want to protect our children, and we've decided to leave,' Mahmoud said, describing it as a great injustice. He had lived in the community since he was 10, Mahmoud said. Alia Mleihat told Reuters the Bedouin community, which had lived there for 40 years, would now be scattered across different parts of the Jordan Valley, including nearby Jericho. 'People are demolishing their own homes with their own hands, leaving this village they've lived in for decades, the place where their dreams were built,' she said, describing the forced displacement of 30 families as a 'new Nakba'. The Nakba, meaning 'catastrophe' in Arabic, refers to the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes during 1948 at the birth of the state of military has not yet commented on the settler harassment faced by the Bedouin families or about the families leaving their community. Asked about violence in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters on Monday that any acts of violence by civilians were unacceptable and that individuals should not take the law into their own hands. Activists say Israeli settlement expansion has accelerated in recent years, displacing Palestinians, who have remained on their land under military occupation since Israel captured the occupied West Bank in the 1967 war. Most countries consider Israeli settlements illegal and a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which ban settling civilians on occupied land.
