JERUSALEM \u2013 Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.<\/p>\n
The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades. <\/p>\n
Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people\u2019s homes daily,\u201d said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.<\/p>\n
Israel’s military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n
Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B\u2019Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents. <\/p>\n
She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east. <\/p>\n
The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians \u2014 at least 44 entire communities \u2014 have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B’Tselem says. <\/p>\n
The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.<\/p>\n
Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way\u201d said Eyad Isaac, another resident. \u201cThey intimidate the children and women.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michaeli said she\u2019s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village\u2019s electricity.<\/p>\n