Israeli settler attacks have displaced over 12,000 Palestinian Bedouins since 2023

Around 1,000 Palestinian families, made up of 12,000 people, have been displaced from various parts of the occupied West Bank since October 2023 due to Israeli settler attacks, a new report said on Saturday.

Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, the occupied West Bank has seen a sharp uptick in settler attacks against Palestinian civilians, as well as the expansion of settler outposts encroaching on Palestinian land.

Israeli forces have also led a widespread detention campaign, with tens of thousands arbitrarily detained, including children.

In the latest example of the forced displacement of Palestinians, 15 Bedouin families fled from the Al-Auja community located near Jericho in the occupied West Bank following a series of violent Israeli settler attacks.

Hassan Mleihat, the general supervisor of the Al-Baydar human rights organisation, confirmed to The New Arab’s Arabic-language sister publication, Al-Araby al-Jadeed, that 15 families from the al-Ghawanimah clan were displaced pn Saturday morning after being forced to tear down their shacks.

Mleihat added that they were forced to leave after settlers attacked them under the protection of Israeli forces.

He also said that families in the area have been displaced from their homes for around seven months and that before the attacks, around 1,000 people lived there.

According to Mleihat, the settler attacks come against the backdrop of ongoing threats made against Palestinian farmers and Bedouin communities. Settler groups have damaged vital infrastructure, such as water wells used by Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have carried out dozens of arrests and incursions in recent weeks.

Local media reported that Israeli forces detained Mahmoud Hamdallah Abu Maria, 60, and his three sons on Saturday after searching and ransacking his home in Beit Ummar, located in the north of Hebron.

Local sources said that several Palestinians were treated for tear gas inhalation on Friday evening following an Israeli incursion in the towns of Beit Ummar and Beit Ula, north of Hebron. Another Palestinian was detained after his home was searched in the south of the city.

In Nablus, Israeli settlers also wounded several Palestinians on Saturday in an attack near the town of Beit Furik, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.

Local sources told the news agency that the settlers severely beat three residents, including a 70-year-old man.

The latest developments come as the National Office for the Defence of Land and Resistance to Settlements said on Saturday that the Israeli government is carrying out several new settlement expansion projects across the West Bank.

A report from the organisation says that far-right Israeli ministers typically push for extremist policies and settler expansion ahead of political events, noting that there will be an Israeli election this year.