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| The fertile land around the village of Atouf in the West Bank. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian |
The death knell for the Palestinian village of Atouf, on the western slopes of the Jordan valley, arrived in the form of a trail of paper, a series of eviction notices taped to homes, greenhouses and wells, marking a straight line across the open fields.
The notices, which appeared overnight, informed the local farmers that their land would be confiscated and that they had seven days from the date of their delivery, 4 December, to vacate their properties. A military road and accompanying barrier was to be built by Israel right through the area.
Lawyers for the Atouf village council have lodged an appeal, but long and bitter experience has taught Palestinians here to have low expectations of Israeli courts.
“The Israeli military can do anything they like. They don’t care about the law or anything else,” said Ismael Bsharat, a local farmer.
Similar eviction notices had been delivered on the same day all along an almost 14-mile (22km) strip of Palestinian farmland running north to south through Atouf, tracing out the route of the planned road and fence. And this week it became clear that this abrupt gash across Palestinian land was the first section of a new line of division that would redraw the map of the West Bank.
This week, Israel’s defence ministry made clear that this would mark only the first section of a new 5.5bn-shekel (£1.3bn) barrier that will eventually run 300 miles, from the Golan Heights on the Syrian border to the north all the way down to the Red Sea near Eilat. Labelled “Crimson Thread” by the Israeli military, the barrier will split countless Palestinian communities along its route... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/13/new-israeli-barrier-slice-through-precious-west-bank-farmland