“We don’t go out in the field or to [‘Ayn Rawabi] spring anymore, because the risk is very high that we’ll be attacked [by settlers] or our sheep will be stolen,” Ahmed, a Bedouin man from the area surrounding the West Bank town of ‘Anata outside Jerusalem, told Jerusalem Story.1

Since July 3, 2026, Israeli settlers have taken over the ‘Anata Bedouins only natural water source—preventing the local shepherds from grazing their livestock and forcing them to rely on expensive water tankers.2

“Going to the spring can mean getting arrested by the Israeli authorities, who would not defend Bedouin and would stand with the settlers,” Ahmed, who preferred not to give his last name, said. “If an altercation happened between us and the settlers, we Bedouin would be arrested. Also, the settlers are armed, and we could be shot at, and it is not worth it to be killed or be injured or shot at by these settlers.”

The ‘Anata Bedouin are surrounded by the Separation Wall on one side, a military training ground on the other, and—in the future—a wall that will be part of the E1 Plan, which will bring tens of thousands of Israeli settlers to the east.

Isolated and without legal recourse, Bedouin who have refused for decades to leave their semi-nomadic way of life in rural grazing areas, despite carrots and sticks offered to them by Israel, are now abandoning their lands. The organized violence from settlers living in encroaching lawless outposts is forcing their hand.

The Bedouin living around ‘Anata, which is located in the Jerusalem Governorate, both inside Israeli-defined municipal Jerusalem and northeast of it, aren’t the only Palestinian shepherding community in Jerusalem’s hinterlands facing attacks from settlers. Approximately 7,000 Bedouin live in 32 communities within the Jerusalem Governorate, with many of these villages experiencing increasing and near-daily harassment from settlers.3

According to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), from January 2023 to April 2026, settler violence has displaced 152 Bedouin communities on the outskirts of Jerusalem outskirts. The Jerusalem Bedouin communities of al-Baq‘a, Mikhmas, and Barriyyat Hizma have been fully displaced due to settler attacks, and Ma‘azi Jaba‘ has been partially displaced.4 There are 21 settler outposts in the Jerusalem–Ma‘ale Adumim area, according to Palestinians. Residents say that settler seizures of water sources, cutting of electricity lines, and violence from settlers happens in conjunction with demolitions of structures by the Israeli government. ‘Anata families have been levied demolition orders for some 40 structures, under a number of different rules and regulations.

“This is completely planned,” says Abu Imad al-Jahalin, one of the Bedouin in the Jerusalem area. “It’s an organized gang plan between [Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich and the Israeli government ministers on the far right and the extremist settlers to put the West Bank entirely under Israeli control and annex the land.”5

Settler violence has intensified throughout the occupied West Bank since 2022, when shepherding outposts—settler encampments that are basically land grabs, illegal under both Israeli and international law—began emerging in larger numbers across the territory.6 This phenomenon coincided with the rise of Israel’s settler far-right, which came into the government during the 2022 election with figures like Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. After the events of October 7, 2023, and Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, right-wing politicians and extremist settlers became even more emboldened.

The Israeli government has provided material support for the violent settlers, forcing now hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, including Bedouin, off their land. In July 2025, Israeli officials gave rural outposts all-terrain vehicles and logistical and security equipment, seeking to “deepen” Israeli control over the territory, while the police trained settler volunteers and provided them with combat gear and weapons.7

“Since the 1970s, these communities have been subject to the Israeli coercive environment aimed at pushing the Bedouin out of their communities—to empty the land of Palestinians for Israeli annexation and settlement expansion,” Allegra Pacheco, Chief of Party at the West Bank Protection Consortium, told Jerusalem Story.8 “Israeli coercive practices are widespread and almost all illegal for an occupying power to use against Palestinians: house demolitions, access restrictions, grazing restrictions, prevention of water and electricity, discriminatory planning, confiscation of property and raids into the community. Since the Gaza War began in October 2023, Israeli settlers have escalated their violence and destruction in Palestinian communities, openly stating that they are attacking Palestinian communities to chase them off their land and prevent a Palestinian state.”

In February 2025, a Bedouin family of four fled Ma‘azi Jaba‘ after a settler mob torched their home.9 And in June 2025, more families fled after settlers, accompanied by the Israeli army, stormed the village again. With a new outpost erected in July 2026, the community remains on edge.10

“From the time of October 2023, we started to see more of these outposts and more of these settlers have been coming around more and more,” Saleh Ara'ara, a resident of Ma‘azi Jaba‘, told Jerusalem Story.11 

“The settlers are 24/7 here, but they gather every three, four days with 70 or 80 other people . . . from different areas and come organized as a convoy altogether.”

When Jerusalem Story visited Ma‘azi Jaba‘ in March 2026, the community had just endured a series of settler attacks in recent weeks. The settlers killed goats and injuring a 10-year-old child.12 In previous attacks, settlers have stormed the village and set fire to homes and vehicles—leaving nothing but charred tires, melted tin, and broken glass in their wake.

“We had two of our people get arrested [during a settler attack],” Ara’ara said. “We have never seen any settler put in an army jeep or arrested by the Israeli army.”

Bedouin have lived in Jerusalem’s hinterlands since the early 1950s after being expelled from the Tel Arad region of the Negev desert by Zionist paramilitary groups in 1948, when Israel became a state.13 They’ve survived war, army-imposed restrictions on their movement, the building of the Separation Wall severing them from EastJerusalem, and the establishment of settlements around their villages. They’ve remained steadfast despite all these obstacles, but the unprecedented violence they are experiencing now is forcing them to leave for other areas of the West Bank.

“These settlers are trained, and they came for a specific aim, which is to uproot us from here,” Ara’ara said. “We’ve known many settlers in the past, and there are settlements [around us] that have had settlers for many years. These are not the ones that we are afraid of. The ones that we are afraid of are the ones that are more of a ‘Hilltop Youth’ type, that are part of the existing two-years conflict that's happening now. We’re very scared of their actions and of what could come next.”

Pacheco says that the only apparent solution to stop this displacement is for the international community to step in. “The Palestinian Authority is prevented from reaching these communities; the international community is not providing protection; and self-defense for a Palestinian is not an option as a Palestinian defending him/herself can be arrested, injured, and/or shot and killed by an Israeli official and/or settler. We can provide humanitarian aid to help them stay on their land and/or recover from an attack. However, this is a band aid . . . The solution requires the international community to apply international law and stop Israel from violating it.”