Ras Ain al-Auja was one of the largest Palestinian Bedouin villages in the West Bank. Now most of its 120 families have been forcibly displaced by state-backed Israeli settlers after nonstop attacks. Residents are calling it “another Nakba.”
The villagers of Taybeh have lived in harmony with the nearby Bedouins for generations. Israeli colonization and the shrinking land available to these communities are now straining social relations, as Israeli settler violence threatens both.
Palestinians say life has been “paralyzed” as Israel expands its military operations to Tulkarem and the northern Jordan Valley. Ground troops have been deployed, imposing curfews and carrying out home demolitions, forcibly displacing thousands.
As the world has focused on the Gaza genocide, a massive Israeli campaign of violence and displacement has taken place across the West Bank. Photojournalist David Lombeida tells the stories of families in the South Hebron Hills and Jordan Valley.
Palestinians fear that if a regional war breaks out, Israel might try to use the opportunity to carry out a second Nakba.
Recent settler attacks against the villages bordering the Jordan Valley between Nablus and Ramallah aren’t random. They are part of a historic Israeli policy to annex the Jordan Valley and expel the Palestinian communities that live there.
The events of recent days suggest we may be seeing the Israeli endgame take shape. Netanyahu’s far right government’s goals are not limited to Gaza: it wants to take over all of Palestine and start a war with Hezbollah and Iran as well.
Israeli forces conducted a four-hour long raid in the norther Jordan valley, killing three Palestinians. Residents say one of the targets of the raid was a resistance fighter and commander of a local battalion called the Tubas Brigade.
It was a typical Friday afternoon when Ibrahim Kharoubi led a popular local hiking group on a trip from Ramallah to the outskirts of Jericho. However, midway through the hike they saw a group of hooded figures coming down from the hilltop in front of them.
As the group got closer, the hikers could make out the wooden clubs in their hands and M16’s strapped around them. It was in that moment when it dawned on them that they were in real danger.
On Monday morning, Israeli armed forces and Civil Administration authorities arrived at Khirbet Humsah, a Bedouin enclave in the northern Jordan Valley, with bulldozers and proceeded to dismantle at least 28 structures, including homes and agricultural pens. This was not the first time Khirbet Humsah’s residents were left homeless and displaced. On November 3rd, 2020, just hours before the US elections, Israeli forces also completely razed the village to the ground, leaving its residents to spend a cold and rainy winter night without shelter.