Eleven Palestinian families from the Khirbet Yarza area, east of Tubas in the northern Jordan Valley, dismantled their homes and tents on Sunday and began leaving the community after a sharp escalation in attacks by illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers.
Mutaz Bisharat, a Palestinian official responsible for the Jordan Valley file in the Tubas Governorate, said the families took down their structures early Sunday morning and prepared to depart after colonizer assaults reached what he described as “dangerous and intolerable levels.”
Bisharat added that the families had endured weeks of harassment, threats, and repeated attacks targeting their homes, livestock, and grazing areas.
Over recent months, the Tubas district and the northern Jordan Valley have witnessed a surge in colonizer violence aimed at pressuring Palestinian herding communities to abandon their land.
Numerous families from pastoral communities surrounding Tubas have already been forced to leave following sustained attacks.
These assaults occur around the clock and follow a consistent pattern:
• invading Palestinian communities,
• attacking residents and their homes,
• terrorizing families at night,
• chasing shepherds from grazing areas,
• and stealing or killing livestock — the primary source of livelihood for these communities.
Human rights groups and local officials warn that these attacks are part of a broader strategy to depopulate the Jordan Valley of its Palestinian residents and expand Israeli colonial outposts across the area.
The displacement of the eleven families from Yarza marks yet another step in this ongoing campaign, leaving entire communities vulnerable and accelerating the fragmentation of Palestinian presence in one of the most strategically targeted regions of the occupied West Bank.
On Sunday before dawn, a group of illegal Israeli colonizers killed two Palestinian men and injured others, after storming the village of Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah in the central part of the occupied West Bank. A third man died after suffering the toxic effects of tear gas inhalation, when at least five others sustained injuries.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the slain men as Thaer Farouq Hamayel, 24, and Fares Jawdat Hamayel, 57, adding that the men were killed after Israeli settlers shot them both in the head with live ammunition after infiltrating Abu Falah village.
On Saturday, Israeli colonizers killed 28-year-old Amir Mohammad Shanaran and critically injured his brother during an attack in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank.
In related news, Israeli colonizers shot and killed two Palestinian brothers and wounded three others on Monday, after invading the village of Qaryout, south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank.
Mohammad Taha Abdel-Majeed Muammar, 51, was killed after settlers shot him in the head, while his brother Fahim Taha Abdul Majeed Muammar, 48, was killed after he sustained a live gunshot wound to the pelvis.
On Tuesday, armed paramilitary settlers shot two Palestinian young men with live ammunition after infiltrating the town of Sa’ir, northeast of Hebron.
Since the beginning of the Israeli military aggression against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, occupation forces and settlers have killed 1124 Palestinian citizens in the occupied West Bank, including 232 children and 24 women.
In the Jenin governorate, 310 Palestinians have been killed, while 213 were killed in Tulkarem, 144 in Nablus, 110 in Hebron, 98 in Tubas, 84 in Ramallah, 62 in Jerusalem, 44 in Qalqilia, 36 in Bethlehem, 15 in Jericho and the Jordan Valley, and 8 in Salfit, according to the Shireen Observatory.
