Fifteen Palestinian families were forced to leave the Al‑Auja Spring Bedouin hamlet north of Jericho, in the occupied West Bank’s northeastern part, early on Saturday, after sustained pressure, constant attacks, and violations by illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers, raising the total number of families displaced from the community to 94.
The Al‑Baydar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights stated that the latest displacement follows a pattern of continuous harassment and assaults by colonizers.
The organization noted that this escalation comes after the forced departure of 20 farming families from Yatta, near Hebron in the southern West Bank, and 26 families from the Arab al‑Ka’abna Bedouin community near Jericho earlier this month, all under repeated attacks over recent weeks.
Al‑Baydar reported that violations included colonizers grazing livestock on Palestinian farmland, damaging fruit trees and crops, and persistently provoking residents, describing these actions as part of a systematic effort to pressure Bedouin communities and seize control of their land.
The organization stressed that the events reflect a deliberate campaign targeting Bedouin communities in the northern Jordan Valley, aimed at creating unlivable conditions and imposing a coercive colonial reality that carries severe economic and social consequences for residents.
Al‑Baydar urged the international community, human rights bodies, and media institutions to take urgent action to protect Bedouin communities and prevent the worsening of forced displacement and the ongoing assaults on Palestinian land and property.
On Friday, Illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers carried out a series of coordinated attacks across several areas of the occupied West Bank, targeting cemeteries, mosques, agricultural land, and Palestinian communities in Jenin in the northern West Bank, Nablus in the northern West Bank, and Bethlehem in the southern West Bank.
Also on Friday, Israeli occupation forces carried out invasions in Qalqilia in the northwestern West Bank, Ramallah in the central West Bank, Bethlehem in the southern West Bank, Jenin in the northern West Bank, Tubas in the northeastern West Bank, and the Qalandia refugee camp north of occupied Jerusalem.
On Friday evening, the army carried out multiple invasions across the Hebron district, firing toxic tear gas at residents, assaulting civilians, damaging property, and abducting a Palestinian man during a home invasion in Dura.
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.
