Across the Jordan Valley, a sparsely populated region that makes up nearly one-third of the West Bank, Palestinian shepherding communities say they are fighting for survival amid mounting pressure to leave their lands. Settler violence, the expansion of Israeli agricultural outposts and what residents describe as the backing of Israeli authorities — including the military and police — have contributed to the displacement of dozens of communities. In the northern Jordan Valley, residents say the pressure also includes the use of military firing zones, restrictions on access to grazing land and limits on access to water.

In the abandoned Palestinian village of Hamam al-Malih, in the Jordan Valley,  just one building remains standing. Scattered children’s toys on the floor, furniture and workbooks suggest that the building was once used as a primary school. Until just a few months ago, around 10 families from a local Palestinian shepherding community lived here.

The final days of Hamam al-Malih can be reconstructed through messages posted in a WhatsApp group run by Jordan Valley Activists, an Israeli organization that accompanies and protects Palestinian shepherding communities from settlers attacks. On the morning of March 9, members reported that settlers had entered the village, thrown stones at the building where activists were sleeping and broken into one of the homes. One activist said he was struck in the shoulder by a rock as settlers gathered outside, banged on the door and shouted threats.

The following day, the group reported a third consecutive settler attack. According to the activists, an elderly resident was injured, a vehicle was badly damaged and a journalist was assaulted and robbed. They also alleged that police officers questioned their account of the incident and made no arrests.

That same week, according to the Israeli news site The Hottest Place in Hell, Col. Gilad Shriki, commander of the IDF's Jordan Valley Brigade, told residents: "This is Area C [the part of the West Bank that remains under full Israeli military and civilian control under the Oslo Accords, comprising roughly 60% of the territory. — DD]. It's a military zone. It's better for you to leave than for us to expel you." Later, the Israeli news site Davar reported that Shriki had also assured residents that the army was committed to protecting them. 

Protecting Hamam al-Malih would not have been difficult. An IDF base sits just a few hundred yards from the village, within clear sight of its homes. Yet the attacks continued, and within weeks the residents had left.

How settlers push Palestinians from their homes

Another threatened community is al-Farisiyah Nabaa Ghazal, which is home to four herder families. Al-Farisiyah is, in effect, a small tent encampment to the west of the Allon Road – located inside an IDF training zone (firing zone). The land in question was declared a military training zone immediately after the occupation of the West Bank in 1967. According to residents, no military training has taken place there for decades.

Ahmad Abu Muhsin, 35, says that his family has lived in Al-Farisiyah for some 45 years. For decades, his relatives would herd their flocks on the nearby hills without disturbance. He says that, under the current Israeli government, and especially since Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack and the subsequent war in Gaza, their reality has changed.

“We were always allowed to herd our flock anywhere,” he says. “The problems started two years ago in October, and since then we haven’t been allowed out at all. New settlers arrived, each one sitting on a hilltop and controlling around 5,000 dunams [roughly 1,200 acre. - DD]. They won’t even allow me to get to the private field I own. There’s a lot of food for our sheep in the hills, but we cannot go there.” If they do dare to go there, he adds, “the settlers arrive, cause problems, and then the army arrives. They keep telling us that it’s a firing zone. The settlers are inside the firing zone, herding their flocks, but no one says anything to them.”

The settlers in question are mainly from nearby farms. For example, on three occasions over the past two years, Israeli courts have issued orders directing a resident of the "Tene Yarok" farm named Gilad Amosi to refrain from harassing the residents of al-Farisiyah.

In 2024, Efrat Eichenstein-Shimla, a judge from the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, described videos submitted to the court, “in which the respondent (Amosi) is seen with another individual arriving at the residential compound where the applicant lives with his family, sitting on chairs belonging to the community members, smoking, setting up a portable gas stove... and drinking near the entrance to the residential shack, at times right alongside the community members who are sitting at the entrance to their home.” The judge also noted that the videos show Amosi and another individual approaching the residential compound as well.

Around a year ago, settlers built a shade structure and a fence enclosing the al-Farisiyah residential compound. In August, the Civil Administration issued a halt-work order and the state told the court that the structures had been erected without permits. However, both the shade and the fence are still there, preventing the residents of al-Farisiyah from crossing through on their way to the grazing grounds. 

In late May, the community suffered another blow. Soldiers from the Jordan Valley Brigade and officials from the Civil Administration raided several communities in the area. In al-Farisiyah, they confiscated a car, a tractor and two water trailers, claiming that they were used to violate an order forbidding entry to a military firing zone. Since the state refuses to connect the area to the water grid, the confiscation has left the residents unable to even transport water to the site in water tankers they purchase from nearby villages. 

The Civil Administration announced that it would return the equipment if residents paid 26,000 shekels ($8,700). Represented by attorney Reut Sha’ar, residents of al-Farisiyah petitioned the High Court of Justice against the confiscation – but the justices rejected their petition, ruling that they should first exhaust all avenues of dialogue with the Civil Administration. In the meantime, the community is surviving almost exclusively on outside help. It relies on Israeli volunteers to take water to the site. Given that they are unable to graze their sheep, the volunteers also provide grain for the flock.

When it comes to the settlers, however, it seems that the rules governing IDF firing zones are less stringent. For example, Haaretz reported that in 2012 the state gave up 900 dunams (about 222 acres) of land from a firing zone in favor of the expansion of the nearby settlement of Elkana. Last year, following a petition submitted by Peace Now, an Israeli NGO advocating a two-state solution, the Civil Administration published six notices on its intention to allocate lands, currently designated as military zones, for shepherding, totaling 16,121 dunams (about 4,000 acres) throughout the West Bank. While it does not specify who will be given the shepherding license, Peace Now says that more than 99 percent of the land previously allocated by the Israeli authorities in Area C has been allocated to Israelis only – and it is safe to assume that the same will be the case this time.

Homes demolished despite court injunctions

To the south of al-Farisiyah is Khirbet Ein al-Hilweh, where we met Uri and Zvia, volunteers from the Jordan Valley Activists organization. Both of them are retirees who come to the area at least once a week to accompany the shepherds, to document any untoward incidents and to try and stand between local Palestinians and the Israeli settlers. They asked Shomrim not to publish their family names and preferred not to be photographed.

“All of these houses have demolition orders against them,” they say, indicating the community in front of them. “One family’s home was torn down even though there was supposed to be a court injunction against it. They stood there with the court order in their hands in front of the officials – but the demolishers just pushed them aside. That’s why they gave them permission to erect a small, alternative tent. There was a mother, a father and three children living here; now, they are crowded into a tent. To the right of that tree, you can see the ruins of another house, which was home to a disabled widow. And that family over there? Two or three weeks ago, their home was also razed. Today, they are living among the ruins.”

Uri and Zvia take us from ruined house to ruined house, telling us who used to live there and when it was razed. Afterwards, they explain that declaring an area a military zone is “another tool in the toolbox that the state uses to expel the shepherds,” alongside settler violence and administrative measures like demolition orders. Here, too, they say, fences have been erected to prevent Palestinian herders reaching their grazing land.

On the western side of the road stands a tent compound holding a few clearly malnourished cows. According to activists, the shepherds here have also lost access to their pastures – just like in al-Farisiyah – and are forced to rely on feed brought in by volunteers. Part of the herd has already been sold, and the rest is somehow managing to get by for now.

‘Not all Israelis share the moral stain’

Fathi Daraghmeh, 67, says that he, his family or his neighbors encounter settler violence at least once a week. He points toward the hills and says that he used to graze his sheep on its slopes. “They enclosed us in a fence,” he says, “just like a prison.” When asked how long he can survive like this, he merely says that he hopes things will improve after the upcoming election.

Uri is convinced that what is happening in the West Bank is part of the so-called Decisive Plan, a 2017 proposal by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich advocating Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and offering Palestinians limited options for remaining there.

The main points of the plan, also known as the Subjugation Plan, include annexation of Palestinian land, the expansion of Israeli settlements and giving the Palestinian population two choices: living under Israeli rule without citizenship in the framework of regional governorships – or expulsion to an Arab country.

“That plan would leave a moral stain for generations on the State of Israel and the Jewish people,” he says. “The accusations that have been levelled against the Jews for generations – that they only look out for themselves and that they take control of everything around them – are happening here. We, as aged Jews and the offspring of the generation that survived the Holocaust, are here to prevent, to thwart and to mitigate the process – and also to show that there are Jews and Israelis who are not part of it.”