The Jerusalem Governorate has sounded the alarm over what it described as a dangerous escalation by Israeli occupation forces and illegal paramilitary colonizers against Bedouin communities surrounding the governorate.
These 33 communities, home to more than 7,000 Palestinians, are facing a systematic campaign of gradual uprooting aimed at erasing Palestinian presence in the eastern areas of the governorate.
Officials stressed that this policy forms part of a broader colonial project designed to suffocate daily life and deepen the suffering of residents.
In a statement issued Thursday, the governorate warned that the ongoing measures carry severe social and economic consequences, destabilizing Bedouin families and placing them under imminent threat of forced displacement — a practice prohibited under international humanitarian law.
The governorate detailed that Bedouin communities stretching from Mikhmas in the north to Wadi an-Nar in the south are subjected to escalating violations. These range from denial of infrastructure and basic services to land confiscation and property seizures.
Daily assaults by colonizers include attacks on residents, cutting water lines, stealing livestock, and destroying wheat and barley crops.
The communities are further encircled by 21 colonial grazing outposts, used as tools of coercion to expel residents and block access to their natural pastures.
A devastating water crisis compounds the pressure: families in areas such as Wadi Sunaysil and al-Wad al-A’waj are forced to purchase water at double the standard price, a policy designed to exhaust them economically and drive them to leave.
As living conditions collapse and sources of income dwindle, many families have lost significant portions of their herds and agricultural assets.
Shepherds are no longer able to reach their grazing lands, while Israeli authorities prohibit any development or service projects by Palestinian or international institutions.
This deliberate creation of a “living vacuum” mirrors the slow attrition strategy — the so‑called “salami slicing” — long employed in colonial expansion policies.
The governorate emphasized that these 33 Bedouin communities are an integral part of Palestinian national identity and rooted presence. Their strategic location lies within the areas targeted by the “Greater Jerusalem” plan and the E1 project, which seeks to sever Jerusalem from its eastern surroundings and cut geographic continuity between the northern and southern West Bank — a move widely condemned as fatal to the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state.
The statement called for urgent national action, both official and popular, to protect the Bedouin communities.
Measures include supporting agriculture and livestock, providing fodder, relieving families of crushing water debts, forming local protection committees, creating job opportunities for youth, and organizing visits to break the isolation imposed by the occupation.
The governorate also urged international and human rights institutions to intervene immediately to safeguard more than 7,000 Palestinians facing forced displacement, expose the scale of violations, and compel Israel to respect its legal obligations.
It stressed that protecting these Bedouin communities is tantamount to protecting the last vital extension of East Jerusalem and the future of Palestinian presence there.
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and acts of terror against civilian populations.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
Articles 53 and 147, prohibit the destruction of civilian property and classify pillage as a war crime.
