26/11/2025 – Union for Justice
The Union for Justice Foundation stated that the occupying authorities are systematically and deliberately targeting Palestinian Bedouin communities east of Jerusalem, seeking to displace those who remain and demolish their shelters. This is done by creating a hostile environment that forces residents into involuntary departure, in line with Israel’s broader expansionist settlement plans.
According to the Union for Justice, Israeli authorities — both through official government channels and through settlers — have recently intensified administrative decisions and on-ground attacks against Bedouin communities east of Jerusalem.
The foundation noted that the communities now clearly under attack include: the “Ma’azi” community east of Jaba’, “Khallat Sadra” in Mikhmas, “Al-Hathroura,” the “Abu Ghaliya” and “Al-Ar‘ara” communities east of Anata, and the “Al-Tibneh” community near Khan al-Ahmar.
These Bedouin communities — originally from the Kaabneh, Jahalin, and Sawahra clans who were displaced from the Naqab Desert after the 1948 Nakba — depend on herding and agriculture. They live under extremely harsh conditions lacking the most basic necessities, as these areas fall under Area (C) according to the Oslo Accords.
The foundation further explained that settler groups carried out 15 different attacks against these communities since the beginning of this month. These included burning shelters and property, throwing stones at residents, attacking them with batons and sticks, and bringing in bulldozers to demolish mobile homes and tin houses.
Settler attacks also included cutting off access roads to these communities in an attempt to isolate them, targeting Palestinian vehicles, raiding homes, stealing sheep and livestock, and burning tires.
Over the past two weeks, the Union for Justice Foundation noted that settlers established two settlement outposts: the first near the “Abu Ghaliya” and “Al-Ar‘ara” communities east of Anata, and the second near the Bedouin “Al-Hathroura” community in Khan al-Ahmar. This involved laying foundations for mobile homes, bringing construction equipment and materials, and opening new roads.
The foundation added: “The repeated settler attacks have forced several Bedouin families to leave the area and move to the outskirts of nearby Palestinian villages. A few days ago, for example, three families from the Al-Ar‘ara clan in the Al-Hathroura community were compelled to abandon their homes by force. Two other families from the same community had previously been displaced due to similar attacks.”
The Union for Justice Foundation emphasized that the goal behind the organized and escalating settler attacks on these communities is to seize hundreds of dunums of Palestinian land in order to expand nearby settlements such as “Adam” and “Binyamin,” and to create geographic continuity between them. It noted that the Palestinian “Ma’azi” community in particular obstructs this connection.
This area is under intensified Israeli targeting because it falls within the major settlement scheme known as the E1 Project, which aims to link the “Ma’ale Adumim” settlement with Jerusalem. This would result in the effective severing of geographic continuity between the northern and southern West Bank.
The Jordan Valley and the desert stretching along the eastern slopes of the West Bank serve as the largest area for agriculture, herding, and seasonal mobility for Bedouin communities.
To take control of this vital region, Israeli authorities declared vast tracts of land as “state land” and “nature reserves,” sought to convert them into closed military zones for training, surrounded them with road networks and checkpoints, and turned Palestinian presence into isolated enclaves — in contrast to uninterrupted geographic continuity between settlements, outposts, and military bases.
According to official UN and local reports, settler attacks and Israeli measures have displaced more than 33 Palestinian Bedouin communities in 66 locations across the West Bank since 7 October 2023, resulting in the forced displacement of more than 2,350 people and enabling settlers to establish 114 new settlement outposts.
Official Palestinian sources state that the outskirts of Jerusalem host 24 Bedouin communities comprising around 2,400 families — more than eight thousand people. The occupation seeks to forcibly relocate these communities into three designated areas: al-Nuwei‘ma and Fasayil in the Jordan Valley near Jericho, or into an isolated mountainous zone east of Abu Dis, north of Jerusalem.
The Union for Justice Foundation stresses that this Israeli targeting of Bedouin communities east of Jerusalem requires urgent international action to protect them by providing immediate legal and humanitarian support, halting settlement projects, and activating the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (July 2024).
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