‘Last nail in the coffin’: Israeli settlers push on with fresh West Bank land grab... "Israeli settlers are pushing ahead with a largely unnoticed de facto annexation of large areas of rural land in the occupied West Bank that has already seen the almost total displacement of Bedouin in large areas." 13 Feb 2025

Jameel Shahalda from the Palestinian village of Minya monitors the movement of Israeli settlers from an illegal outpost nearby. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

There are fears that a widely unnoticed displacement of Bedouin has the aim of fragmenting the territory intended for a future Palestinian state

Peter Beaumont and Quique Kierszenbaum in Tko'a

Thu 13 Feb 2025 00.00 EST

Last modified on Thu 13 Feb 2025 03.00 EST

Israeli settlers are pushing ahead with a largely unnoticed de facto annexation of large areas of rural land in the occupied West Bank that has already seen the almost total displacement of Bedouin in large areas.

While settler activity, including violence, has long been well-documented in the section of the West Bank designated by the 1993 Oslo accords as under Israeli security and administrative control – the so-called Area C of the occupied territory, including the south Hebron Hills – settlers have switched their focus to mostly rural Area B, which was designated to be under Palestinian civil control initially.

All three of the Oslo areas – Area A being the major Palestinian cities – were intended under the accords to be transferred to a future Palestinian state.

At a time when the US president, Donald Trump, has talked about the relocation of Palestinians from Gaza, effectively endorsing its ethnic cleansing, a process of displacement is already advancing in Area B as West Bank Palestinians come under pressure from settlers and their far-right political backers in Israel

In one section of Area B in the arid desert hills between Bethlehem and the Dead Sea near the Israeli settlement of Tko’a all evidence of Bedouin who once lived there appears to have been erased, while in a second area those that remain are being harassed by settler violence.

In a landscape of deep wadis and dusty limestone escarpments, Bedouin shepherds until recently grazed flocks on the low-lying plants that appear in the winter months, or on seasonally cultivated forage crops in the flat valley bottoms.

Valleys that once sustained groups of Bedouin... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/13/last-nail-in-the-coffin-israeli-settlers-push-on-with-fresh-west-bank-land-grab

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