Tears streamed down Mahmoud Eshaq's face as he watched his family dismantle their life. After five decades in the sun-baked hills of the south Jordan Valley, his entire existence was being packed into a truck in a single, devastating day. The 55-year-old, who had not cried since boyhood, was overcome as he prepared to abandon Ras 'Ein al 'Auja, the only Bedouin village left in this part of the occupied West Bank.
A Coordinated Campaign of Terror
As Eshaq's children loaded mattresses and sacks of flour, a surreal scene unfolded nearby. Masked Israeli soldiers escorted a teenage Israeli shepherd down the main village road, where he posed for photographs on his donkey, flashing a V-sign. For the residents, this was a chilling victory parade. The ethnic cleansing of their community of roughly 135 families was underway, accelerated by a relentless campaign of arson, theft, beatings, and intimidation from settlers.
By the start of this year, Ras 'Ein al 'Auja stood alone. Its neighbours in nearby Mu'arrajat had fled in July. According to settlement monitor Kerem Navot, Israeli settlers now exert full control over more than 250 square kilometres of land in this area – territory the international community envisions as part of a future Palestinian state. "We were living here peacefully, but they made us into an enemy. The settlers brought the violence," Eshaq said, his voice breaking.
The Mechanics of Dispossession: Shepherds as Soldiers
The project to erase Palestinian presence here is sophisticated, state-backed, and shockingly efficient. While building homes is slow, seizing vast tracts of grazing land using flocks of sheep, goats, and camels is not. The foot soldiers are often teenagers, including minors sent to remote outposts under a programme for at-risk youth.
"With all due respect to the IDF, the critical and decisive work of Jewish settlement and the expulsion of the enemy is done by those 15- to 16-year old boys," boasted one message in a settler WhatsApp group. These youths, backed by the full might of the Israeli state and enjoying near-total impunity, roam with increasing boldness. Settlers have even been equipped with all-terrain vehicles handed out at public ceremonies by far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler.
The violence reached a tipping point in Ras 'Ein al 'Auja in the new year. Settlers ploughed up a vital dirt track, established a makeshift outpost inside the village, and began nightly raids. They severed electricity cables, emptied water tanks, and pushed into rooms where women and children slept. Last Thursday, 26 families – more than 120 people – decided they could no longer stay.
International Condemnation, On-the-Ground Reality
The forced displacement is a mainstream Israeli project, tracing back to the Allon Plan conceived after the 1967 war. The strip of land coveted then, which includes this village, now lies between Highway 90 and the infamous Allon Road. Settler leader Elisha Yered celebrated the destruction of another village here as a template, posting: "God willing, one day we will force you [Palestinians] to the places you belong, in Iraq and Saudi Arabia."
While countries like the UK, Canada, and France have imposed sanctions on violent settlers, the obliteration continues apace. In the two years since October 2023, over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by soldiers and settlers, with no convictions. Security forces routinely arrest Israeli peace activists and Palestinians, but ignore or support settler violence.
For those like Na'ef Ja'alin, a father of ten, staying is an act of desperation, not hope. "The ones who have left have family who can give them a plot of land. Me and my brothers have no place to go," he said. Each departure makes those left behind more vulnerable, as the settlers' grip on the land tightens. As the trucks roll away, a centuries-old way of life in the Jordan Valley is being systematically erased, one family, one tear, at a time.
