JORDAN VALLEY: Naef Jahaleen fears for the future of his Bedouin herding community as Israeli settlements increasingly surround their land in the occupied West Bank.
The 49-year-old herder recalls life was good before in Ras Ein Al-Auja before settlement outposts multiplied over the past two years.
Settlers’ temporary trailers have gradually transformed into permanent houses with foundations built just 100 metres from Bedouin homes.
Settlers diverted the village’s most precious resource in May by taking control of the spring that gives Ras Ein Al-Auja its name.
The community of 130 families now constantly stands guard against settlers cutting power lines, damaging irrigation pipes, and bringing herds to graze near homes.
“The settlers provoke people at night, walking around the houses, disturbing the residents, making people anxious, scaring the children and the elderly,“ Jahaleen explained.
He noted that calling Israeli police in the area rarely brings assistance or protection for the Palestinian residents.
“A settler could come to your house — you call the police, and they don’t come. The army doesn’t come. No one helps,“ Jahaleen told AFP after coordinating with other villagers.
Most Palestinian Bedouins depend on herding, making them particularly vulnerable when Israeli settlers introduce competing herds.
Settlement watchdog organisations describe this strategy as “pastoral colonialism” aimed at displacing communities.
“They have started to bring in Jewish colonisers and give them some small herd or a few sheep or cows and take over a specific area,“ explained Younes Ara of the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission.
Settlements have expanded significantly since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, with over 500,000 settlers now living in the territory alongside approximately three million Palestinians.
Jahaleen believes the combination of Israeli herding and constant harassment aims to force Palestinians to abandon their land.
“You never know when or how they’ll harass you. The goal is to make you leave,“ he said while standing guard near his home one evening.
Doron Meinrath, a former Israeli army officer, sometimes joins the night watches with volunteers from his organisation Looking the Occupation in the Eye.
Foreign and Israeli activists help document settler movements, contact authorities, and deter violence through their presence in eight-hour shifts.
“Let’s go after them,“ Meinrath said upon spotting a car driving down an illegal road connecting the new outpost to a formal settlement.
All Israeli settlements in the West Bank remain illegal under international law according to United Nations standards.
Meinrath recorded the vehicle’s license plate and reported it to police as unsafe in an effort to slow further land appropriation.
Despite the relentless settlement expansion, Meinrath believes organisations like his present challenges to the settler movement.
The former officer said his political views strengthened as he witnessed Israel’s political shift toward supporting settlements.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other cabinet members openly advocate for annexing the West Bank, particularly the Jordan Valley.
Abu Taleb, a 75-year-old herder from Ras Ein Al-Auja, has watched his ancestral land transform throughout his lifetime.
His community once maintained self-sufficiency in the area between rocky hills and the Jordan Valley.
Taleb and his sons must now pay to refill their water tank every three days since settlers blocked access to their spring.
The elderly herder also confines his sheep when settlers arrive with their herds to prevent potential violence.
“My life as a child was good. But now, their lives are not good,“ Taleb said, gesturing toward his three grandchildren playing under an acacia tree.
“They grew up in a bad life. These kids are afraid of the settlers everywhere.” – AFP