JORDAN VALLEY, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), Palestinian families were forced to leave the al-Burj Bedouin community in the northern Jordan Valley of the occupied West Bank following escalating settler attacks, marking the latest wave of forced displacement targeting Bedouin groups in the region.
Local official Moataz Bisharat reported that 15 Palestinian families, totaling about 100 people, mainly women, children, and elderlies, dismantled their homes and fled their community due to relentless settler violence. Attackers repeatedly burned their homes, stole property and livestock, and assaulted residents, forcing this mass displacement.
Bisharat added that the same settler assaults had, in recent days, forced seven other families to leave the nearby al-Maita community.
He described these events as part of a systematic policy aimed at emptying the Jordan Valley of its Palestinian residents, paving the way for settlement expansion.
In a related development, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) with bulldozers stormed the town of Qarawat Bani Hassan, west of Salfit, and forced Palestinian residents of three homes to evacuate after cutting off electricity, as a prelude to demolishing them.
The town’s mayor, Farhat Mar’iee, said that the IOF started demolishing one of the houses, although its owner presented an Israeli court order halting the demolition until the completion of judicial procedures.
The mayor added that the bulldozers later withdrew after the Palestinian liaison office intervened following the demolition of only one house.
Mar’iee explained that the three houses had been built in 2010, with their legal cases lingering unresolved in Israeli courts for years despite their remote location away from settlements. He pointed out that the Israeli army justifies the demolitions on security grounds.
He further pointed out that around 270 other houses in the town are threatened with demolition under the pretext of being built without permits.
In the northern West Bank, Israeli bulldozers demolished an inhabited house in the new Nablus area on Mount Gerizim, citing construction without a permit. This comes as part of the ongoing policy of home demolitions targeting Palestinians across various parts of the West Bank.
