{"id":282171,"date":"2024-12-09T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T12:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=282171"},"modified":"2024-12-09T08:49:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T08:49:00","slug":"the-west-bank-villages-wiped-off-the-map-by-israeli-settler-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/12\/the-west-bank-villages-wiped-off-the-map-by-israeli-settler-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"The West Bank Villages Wiped Off the Map by Israeli Settler Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The ruins of a building destroyed by settlers in the displaced Palestinian village of Khalet Khader, occupied West Bank.\u00a0 (Oren Ziv)<\/p><\/div>\n

Since 7 Oct 2023, over 50 rural Palestinian communities have been forced to abandon their homes amid intensifying attacks, threats, and harassment by Israeli settlers \u2014 almost always with the backing of the army and police.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

4 Dec 2024 – <\/em>Several weeks before October 7, +972 Magazine published <\/a>an investigation into the seizure by Israeli settlers of a vast area of the occupied West Bank, stretching east from Ramallah to the outskirts of Jericho. Through the establishment of an array of new settler outposts and sustained harassment of Palestinian shepherding communities, which was often ignored or actively facilitated by the Israeli army, settlers managed to expel virtually all the Palestinians living in an area measuring approximately 150 square kilometers.<\/p>\n

In that investigation, we reported on the forcible displacement of four shepherding communities within a period of four years, totaling several hundred people. But over the past 14 months since the Gaza war began, what was already a dramatic process of ethnic cleansing has accelerated exponentially.<\/p>\n

According to new data<\/a> gathered by the left-wing Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, which monitors Israel\u2019s dispossession of Palestinian land in the West Bank, at least 57 Palestinian communities have been forced to flee their homes since October 7 as a result of Israeli settler attacks<\/a>. Of these, seven have been partially displaced \u2014 meaning the expulsion of at least one residential cluster, located several hundred meters away from the next \u2014 and 50 have been wiped off the map entirely.<\/p>\n

Most of the displacement has been concentrated in four areas: the northern Jordan Valley, east of Ramallah, southeast of Bethlehem, and the South Hebron Hills. \u201cUnsurprisingly, most new outposts have been established in these areas,\u201d Etkes explained. \u201cThere is a direct link between their establishment and the rise in violence [against Palestinians].\u201d<\/p>\n

Kerem Navot and another left-wing Israeli NGO, Peace Now, estimate that since October 2023, at least 41 illegal settler outposts and herding farms<\/a> have been established in the West Bank. At least 10 of these were built in close proximity to Palestinian communities that were subsequently forced to flee their lands. In addition, settlers have set up \u201cobservation posts\u201d or planted Israeli flags in areas abandoned by Palestinians in order to prevent them from returning.<\/p>\n