The Expulsion on the map

Displaced Shepherd Communities in the West Bank between 2022-2024

In July 2022, a significant event occurred in the West Bank. For the first time, an entire Palestinian community was expelled from its residence directly by settlers, rather than by the army. This was the Bedouin shepherd community of Ras Al Tin, which had existed for decades northeast of Ramallah on lands belonging to the Palestinian village of Kafr Malek.

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A few months before their expulsion, we visited the community and listened to the residents describing the systematic and escalating violence they faced from settlers. Around two years earlier, these settlers had established a violent shepherd outpost known as "Micha’s Farm" approximately a kilometre south of their homes. This outpost is part of a chain of illegal outposts that residents of the isolated and violent settlement of Kochav Hashachar have established over the years.

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What ultimately led to the expulsion of the community from the place, were a number of brutal attacks carried out by settlers accompanied by soldiers who arrived from the nearby military base, inside the homes of the community's residents. In a conversation we had with one of them shortly after the deportation, he explained that as long as the settlers' attacks were in the open pastures, they somehow managed to hold on.  But when the settlers began to attack, beat, humiliate and destroy property inside their homes and in front of family members, the danger and humiliation were too severe and they had to flee the place within a few days.

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After the expulsion of the residents of Ras Al Tin, we described the event here as unprecedented at that time. What we didn't know was that this would become a pattern, one that would repeat itself in dozens of other Palestinian communities and settlement clusters in the coming years, reshaping the map of the West Bank.

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The "success" of the settlers in Ras Al Tin inspired settlers in other areas of the West Bank to adopt similar methods. During the 15 months between the expulsion of the residents of Ras al-Tin and the massacre on October 7, 2023, five more Palestinian shepherd communities were forcibly removed. For example, the community of Widadi at the southern end of the West Bank was deported in the summer of 2022 by a gang from the nearby outpost of Havat Meitarim, which belongs to Inon Levy. Meanwhile, the community of Ein Samia was driven out about a year later, in the summer of 2023, by settlers from outposts surrounding the settlement of Kochav Hashachar.

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The October 7 massacre, therefore, found the settlers more prepared than ever before to advance their campaign of expelling Palestinian shepherd communities. In the first days and weeks following the massacre, several communities and groups of Palestinian shepherds were indeed driven out by settlers. On October 19, 2023 (just 12 days after the massacre) B'Tselem organisation published a map identifying 28 communities that had been expelled: 22 fully and six partially.

Over the year that has passed since then, additional shepherd communities have been expelled by settlers.

The map we are publishing here today includes all the communities and clusters known to us that have been expelled since the summer of 2022. The most recent of these is the community of Jurat Al Khail, whose residents were gradually expelled over the past year, with the last remaining residents forced to leave in the final weeks of October 2024.

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The map does not include communities where the expulsion was partial, nor does it include the dozens of other communities currently at risk of expulsion due to ongoing violence directed at them by the settlers and the army.

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Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that there is serious concern that this map will need to be updated in the future, as violence against Palestinian shepherd communities is ongoing and not only in Area C, but also against communities located in Area B and within the agreed natural reserve areas, which, according to the Wye Accords, are designated as Area B territory.

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Even though this violence is primarily carried out by settler gangs, it proceeds without fear or concern for law enforcement authorities. This impunity reflects a clear and consistent policy advanced by successive Israeli governments. Especially the current one, which is more corrupt and racist than its predecessors, aiming to effectively annex increasing parts of the West Bank, devoid of its Palestinian population.