The difference is the only visible sign of the biggest strategic shift in the battle for control of Area 60, 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control, in recent years: the emergence of Israeli settlers using grazing as a tool to occupy it. more land, with minimal effort. “In the past, we could carry sheep and goats to all the mountains and the valley,” said Mohammed, a 16-year-old who grazed a 200-foot-long herd on the side of the road that is safe for Palestinians. “Now the road is the border and beyond that it is forbidden.” Map – area C of the West Bank “They come down from the mountain and get the water, they take the land, but they bring goats,” said Abu Fadi, 52, a Bedouin shepherd from Al-Auja, a village north of Jericho. “There is no longer enough space and the price of animal feed is rising. We are under pressure from both sides. “ About 450,000 Israelis have settled in what is now West Bank C since the beginning of the occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967, some motivated by religious or nationalist motives and others by cheaper living costs. Their presence is considered by most of the international community as a major obstacle to lasting peace. What was once considered a pioneering way of life is now often very comfortable: some early settlements are now well-established and affluent, with security guards at the entrance and fences with cameras and barbed wire. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are on standby to enforce martial law for the Palestinians and civil law for the settlers. A shelter on the Haroe Haiviri settler farm. Photo: Quique Kierszenbaum / The Guardian According to Dror Etkes, a leading expert on Israeli land policy over the Green Line and founder of the NGO Kerem Navot, for the past 10 years, the right wing of the settlers’ movement has been trying something different, with great success. A new study by Kerem Navot found that there are now 77 Israeli farms and shepherds’ outposts in the West Bank. 66 were founded in the last decade and 46 in the last five years, part of an explosion in the development of settlements during the Trump administration. The area now controlled by shepherds is about 60,000 acres – just under 7% of Area C. As Ze’ev Hever, general secretary of Amana, an organization of settlers, put it at an online conference last year: to a large extent – now they cover an area almost twice the built-up area of the settlements “. Etkes spent three years interviewing Palestinian shepherds, observing changes over time in pastures visited by Palestinians and settlers, and using aerial photographs to map geographical features such as deep valleys and roads, which are now often the de facto boundaries. appropriated by settler shepherds. He also noted that shepherds often help with grants and land grants issued directly by Israeli government agencies and other publicly funded agencies. “This is the most significant change in the West Bank in decades. “The settlement business was about building communities, and now often someone comes alone to start a farm and maybe later bring their family, living as if they were in the Wild West,” Etkes said during the Guardian’s visit to many Palestinian and settlement communities. in the Jordan Valley last week. A cement block with the inscription “Dangerous, trigger zone” near the Malachei Hashalom farm in the West Bank. Photo: Quique Kierszenbaum / The Guardian “At first they are very violent in repelling the Palestinians, but once they gain control, they are usually less violent. “They feel they have a right to the land, as if they do not need numbers or an army to keep them safe.” Violence related to land control in the West Bank is on the rise, with 450 settler attacks on Palestinians and 160 Palestinian attacks on settlers recorded by the UN in 2021. The Bedouin settlement of Ras al-Tin in the Jordan Valley is still shrouded in a particularly brutal incident last week: about 20 shepherds living on top of a nearby hill arrived in the village by car on Tuesday night, accompanied by 10 members. IDF. According to other residents, the settlers entered a house and beat four members of a family with batons with nails, while the IDF was watching. Mustafa Ka’abanh and his sons Ahmad and Muhammad, in their 20s, were handcuffed and the youths arrested. A young Palestinian shepherd tries to keep his goats off the road. Photo: Quique Kierszenbaum / The Guardian Hagger, 50, their mother, was beaten so badly that she was unconscious in a hospital in Ramallah for several days. Mustafa was detained for four days after being released from hospital and their two sons remain in the Ofer military prison. The Israeli army said soldiers had been sent to the scene to split a physical altercation between Israeli and Palestinian civilians and threw stones at two villagers. “Soldiers responded in accordance with operational procedures, including warning shots, until all the suspects were disbanded,” a spokesman said. “Ahmad and Mohammed Kaabanh were arrested on suspicion of assaulting a 15-year-old” and their detention “was extended by the military court of appeals for investigative purposes until Monday”. “I heard that the settlers came because they were angry about an incident involving a cow and that was revenge, but we had nothing to do with it,” said a close relative of the family, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. The attack marked the first time settlers who had set up a nearby outpost in recent years had entered Ras al-Tin itself. People living there are now deeply concerned that the violence could escalate and that, like many others, they could be forced to flee their homes. “There is no worse oppression in the world than not being safe in your own home,” said the relative. “It has nothing to do with who can graze animals and where, not really. “They want to get rid of us completely.”
