Palestinian Communities Face Displacement in West Bank as Israeli Settlements Expand

Oneindia

While international attention has been on Gaza, dozens of Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank are being displaced. Violent attacks by Israeli settlers are on the rise, while Israel declares ever more land there as Israeli-state owned.      #Palestine #WestBank #IsraeliSettlements #DisplacementCrisis #OccupiedTerritories #HumanRightsViolation #GazaConflict #PalestinianRights #LandGrab #SettlerViolence #InternationalAttention #IsraeliOccupation #DisplacedCommunities #HumanitarianCrisis #SettlementExpansion                 ~PR.152~ED.194~HT.178~

Transcript

00:00For Borhan Basharat, everyday life has become a struggle.

00:06The Bedouin shepherd has been grazing his herds in these hills for decades.

00:10On lands his father and grandfather grazed too.

00:13But lately his livelihood and family tradition is coming under increased threat.

00:20For two, three or four months on a daily basis we've been experiencing violent assaults.

00:25It's not possible to sleep at night fearing for our children.

00:29We're under constant threat and at any moment we could get killed, we could have our houses

00:33and cabins burnt, we could be displaced.

00:37The threat comes from settler violence.

00:40Borhan's encampment is surrounded on one side by an Israeli settlement considered illegal

00:45under international law, and on another by an outpost, an informal settlement considered

00:51illegal even under Israeli law.

00:55Borhan says lately it feels as though they're closing in.

01:00After October 7th they stabbed someone with a knife in El Maleh.

01:04Burnt houses.

01:05They attacked and confiscated livestock.

01:07One of the farmers from Jiflek who got his livestock confiscated had to pay around 40,000

01:12dollars for it.

01:18Livestock theft is not uncommon.

01:20According to Israeli liberal newspaper Haaretz, more than 500 goats and sheep have been stolen

01:27by armed Israeli settlers in recent months, sometimes in military uniform.

01:33Even more common than theft though is violence and intimidation.

01:39Scenes like these are a regular occurrence all over the West Bank.

01:45And the intimidation is working.

01:48Since the October 7th terror attack, settlers have forcibly displaced people from at least

01:5320 herding communities and entirely uprooted another seven.

01:58The Israeli military is supposed to protect Palestinians living here, but a report by

02:02Human Rights Watch has found the military is either failing to do so or is directly

02:08involved in the violence.

02:13Israeli volunteer activists have stepped up their work in an effort to keep communities

02:18safe.

02:19The protective presence started right after October 7th.

02:24Communities were extremely threatened by settlers' visits and harassment, so we had to start

02:34coming in the nights.

02:36When we are there, much less is happening.

02:39The activists say settler violence is part of an unofficial but deliberate Israeli policy

02:45to take land.

02:47But there's another official way too.

02:54Dror Etkers is the founder of Kerem Navot, an organization engaged in monitoring and

02:59researching Israeli land policy in the West Bank.

03:03He says the reclassification of land is one of the main methods by which Israel seeks

03:08to assert control over land in the occupied territories.

03:11Basically, they had surveyed this area, they were supposed to survey this area, and to

03:16reach the conclusion that this area was not cultivated.

03:21And if it was not cultivated for a certain amount of years, so then they assume that

03:28it's state land and Israel has a right to run this land.

03:33So you can assume that this area, which had been declared, is going to go to a body which

03:40is related to Israeli-Islamic enterprise.

03:44An enterprise the government is actively working to promote.

03:47When reclassifying the biggest pocket of land in decades, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich

03:52said the move was an important and strategic issue.

03:56While there are those in Israel and in the world, he said, who seek to undermine our

04:00right to Judea and Samaria, we promote settlement through hard work and in a strategic manner

04:07all over the country.

04:09This year, more than 1,100 hectares of land has been reclassified as state land.

04:15This is directly related to the political climate.

04:18They are doing it now in order to convey a message.

04:21We will do whatever we want.

04:23We are decisive to go on with the Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

04:28And there's no legal way that a Palestinian can fight this, not the Palestinian Authority?

04:33Not a practical one.

04:35Despite the challenges, Burhan is determined to try to hold on to his land.

04:42There's no justification, so I'm living here in my land, right?

04:45These settlers, what business do they have here in my land?

04:49I have a title to this land.

04:51What do they want from me?

04:53Where should I go?

04:58He hopes increased international pressure will help save his land for future generations.

Category

Transcript

Recommended