Utolsó frissítés: 2026.06.04. — Szerző: Anti-Propaganda News Blog
Settler attacks in the Jordan Valley have forced a growing number of Palestinian communities to abandon their villages.
Publication Date: June 3, 2026.
Mukhlis Masa’id, who lives in the village of Khirbet Yarza in the occupied West Bank, has been living in deep sorrow ever since settlers intensified their attacks against his community in the Jordan Valley three years ago. He and other local Palestinians have witnessed the settlers destroying their crops with increasing cruelty and frequency, raiding their homes, and assaulting shepherds and farmers working in the pastures around the village.
Fourteen families—a total of about 100 Palestinians—called this region home until escalating violence by settlers forced them to reevaluate their future here. Earlier this year, the locals decided they’d had enough of the nearly daily settler attacks, so they gathered what remained of their belongings and left the village.
The systematic targeting of agriculture in this area —on which the livelihoods of nearly the entire community depend—appears to be an organized and systematic campaign of intimidation by the settlers, aimed at driving entire Palestinian farming communities from their land.
„The settlers have numerous means of communicating with one another. When they attack the herders, they gather in droves to intimidate them. Meanwhile, we have no means of transportation to reach the herders and try to protect them. Our roads are also rough and unpaved, unlike the roads used by the settlers,” Masa’id told Al Jazeera.
The settlers didn’t stop there; they stole hundreds of sheep and cattle, which were the lifeblood of this community in the northern West Bank. „We feel as if we’ve lost a son. What has happened to us is the worst thing that could possibly happen—leaving our homes, where we have lived our entire lives, and where we hoped our children and grandchildren would also live,” he said.
Attacks by settlers intensified starting in October 2023, a few months after a new Israeli government came to power, in which far-right ministers—who either led or were part of settler movements—were appointed to key positions. The campaign continued until the community fled their homes in March 2026, but their problems did not end there.
„Dozens of livestock died of disease after we moved away. When we left, we had no choice but to leave the feed out in the rain because there was nowhere else to store it, so it went bad,” said Masa’id. „Now we graze the remaining animals in cramped, overcrowded areas, such as around Tubas. Nothing in our current life resembles what we had in Yirza.”.
Repeated attacks by settlers have affected not only „Area C”—which accounts for more than 60 percent of the West Bank and is under full Israeli control—(Area C) are being targeted. It appears that there are also broader objectives regarding the entire Palestinian territory, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967. This includes „The Territory” (Area A), which is, in theory, under the full control of the Palestinian Authority, but where there is also increasing settler activity.
Zuhair Abu Shaar, a resident of the village of Jifna, located north of Ramallah, was shocked to see a group of Israeli settlers suddenly storm his livestock pen, located in the heart of the village, on April 15. The villagers confronted the group, who briefly left the scene but returned half an hour later, accompanied by 12 Israeli military vehicles.
„The soldiers got out of their vehicles on foot and came toward us along with the settlers. They stole 180 head of cattle, took them away, assaulted us, and shot one of my neighbors in the leg,” Abu Shaar told Al Jazeera. „They also hit my nephew hard in the side, right where he’d had surgery months ago, causing him to fall to the ground. When I tried to protect him, they beat me, handcuffed me, forced me to the ground, and held a gun to my head.”.
The army cleared the entire pen—with the exception of a single sick, lame sheep—and then retreated behind a cloud of tear gas, taking with them a donkey and a car they had found in the village. Zuhair estimates his losses at at least 450,000 shekels ($150,000), and he has no information whatsoever about the livestock that had been his sole source of income before the settlers stole them. „I feel like someone whose house was demolished and is now rebuilding it brick by brick. I’m trying to start from scratch. This is an occupation, and we can expect anything from them as they try to force us off our land,” he added.
Nidal Younis, chairman of the village council of Masafer Yatta, located south of Hebron, told Al Jazeera that settlers have taken over nearly all of the area’s pastures over the past three years. Settler groups have established 12 new outposts around Masafer Yatta and, according to local officials, have appropriated more than 90 percent of the land planted with winter crops such as wheat and barley.
„Last year, the settlers prevented people from harvesting their crops while they drove their own sheep onto the fields to graze,” Younis said. „They also prevented farmers from plowing by attacking their tractors and assaulting the farmers.” On January 27, settlers attacked a village in the Masafer Yatta area and stole 300 head of livestock. They even assaulted, beat, or stole the animals from those who were grazing on land outside the area.
„The cost of raising livestock has become very high for people, and many families have been forced to sell part of their herds in order to feed the rest,” he said. „In Masafer Yatta, the livestock population is declining dramatically every year; the current number is less than 25 percent of what it was a few years ago.”.
According to a report released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in mid-May 2026, the number of monthly incidents in the JordanValley, the number of monthly incidents resulting in injuries or property damage rose from two per month in 2020 to 27 per month during the first four months of 2026. These incidents are no longer limited to individual attacks against Palestinians; rather, they have targeted the entire way of life of these agricultural communities through continuous attacks on pastures, water sources, and reservoirs. Agricultural equipment and facilities, such as animal pens, have also been destroyed.
OCHA warned that the systematic targeting of Palestinian agriculture threatens to undermine families’ ability to make a living, as herding is the primary source of income for many residents. A report published in 2025 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) published in 2025 showed that nearly two-thirds of the 72,000 farming and herding families living in the occupied West Bank were in need of emergency aid.
Abbas Melhem, head of the Union of Palestinian Agricultural Associations, said that 87 percent of the livestock sector is concentrated in the area stretching from Masafer Yatta to the Jordan Valley to the east, much of which is located in Area C. More than 90 percent of the area between Masafer Yatta and the eastern Jordan Valley is off-limits to Palestinian farmers and shepherds. In contrast, Israeli settlers’ flocks have unrestricted access to the pastures, he said.
Due to this campaign of settler violence and the Israeli restrictions imposed on Palestinian farmers, the livestock population in the West Bank and Gaza has fallen from 1.75 million four years ago to just 480,000," Melhem said. This, combined with the fact that settlers target olive groves—the West Bank’s main crop—during the harvest season, will mean the complete destruction of a Palestinian way of life that has existed for centuries.
„I am not exaggerating when I say that if the situation continues like this without support for livestock farmers, Palestinians will be forced to buy sacrificial animals from settlers who are fully protected by the Israeli army,” Melhem told Al Jazeera. „We are on the brink of a collapse in food security in both the plant and animal sectors if there is no international intervention to protect us.”.
