Escalation of settler attacks displaces 15 Palestinian families from Jordan Valley
QUDS, Feb. 17 (YPA) – About 15 Palestinian families were forced on Tuesday to leave the Bedouin community of Al-Burj in the northern West Bank following an escalation in settler attacks, marking another wave of displacement targeting Bedouin communities in the area.
Moataz Basharat, the official in charge of the settlement file in Tubas and the Jordan Valley (Al-Aghwar), said that around 100 residents—most of them women, children, and elderly people—were compelled to dismantle their homes and leave after repeated attacks. These incidents reportedly included the burning of homes, theft of property and livestock, and physical assaults on residents.
He added that similar attacks in recent days had forced seven additional families to leave the nearby Al-Mata community. Basharat described the developments as part of what he called a systematic policy aimed at emptying the Jordan Valley of its Palestinian population to facilitate settlement expansion.
In a related development, Israeli forces, accompanied by military bulldozers, entered the town of Qarawah Bani Hassan, west of Salfit, and ordered residents of three homes to evacuate after cutting off the electricity supply in preparation for demolition.
The town’s mayor, Farhat Meri, stated that the forces began demolishing one of the houses despite the owner presenting a court order issued by Israeli authorities to halt the demolition pending completion of legal proceedings. He said the bulldozers later withdrew following intervention by a Palestinian legal organization, but only after one home had already been demolished.
Meri noted that the three houses were built in 2010 and that their cases have remained pending in Israeli courts for years without a final ruling, even though they are located far from settlements. He added that authorities justify the demolitions on security grounds.
He further stated that approximately 270 other homes in the town face demolition orders on the grounds of being built without permits.
In the northern West Bank, Israeli bulldozers also demolished an inhabited home in the New Nablus–Alawite Cooperative Housing area atop Mount Gerizim, citing construction without a permit, in what residents describe as a continuation of a broader policy of home demolitions affecting Palestinians across the West Bank.
AA