Property deeds no protection for Palestinians as settler violence spreads

Taybeh Junction, occupied West Bank - The barbed wire placed in front of the entrance of the Mleihat compound makes it cumbersome for women, children, the elderly and visitors to enter.

But Muhammad Mleihat, 57, says the wire is mostly meant to slow the settlers down long enough to be seen. "They have cutters," he said, gesturing at the fence line. "They come and cut it and push through."

Mleihat is no stranger to displacement. His family were among those expelled in the 1948 Nakba, or "catastrophe" - when 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland during the formation of Israel.

Two years ago, he and his children were driven out by settler violence from Mughayyir al-Deir, a herding community in the hills to the east. They came to this land, a kilometre or so (about 0.6 miles) northwest of the Taybeh Junction, where he says he holds a tabu - an official land deed - in his own name.

But over the past three years, with all of the Palestinian Bedouin villages east and south of the junction now violently emptied, the settlers' confrontation zone has now reached this stretch along Route 449 - into areas officially under shared Israeli security and Palestinian civil control. Until recently, these regions, designated Area B by the Oslo Process, were seen as beyond the settlers' reach. With the lands the Bedouins left behind now emptied, the settlers have followed.

"The settlers came after us - the same settlers from Mughayyir al-Deir,” explained Mleihat.

Locals say the most aggressive settlers in the area are part of a network linked to Neria Ben Pazi - a settler sanctioned by the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan, among others - who spearheaded much of the forcible displacement of Palestinians from areas east of Ramallah, including allegedly supporting displacement efforts in Mughayyir al-Deir. Local monitors estimate Ben Pazi now has established outposts across the West Bank “in the double digits”.

According to the accounts of the families in the area, the settlers arrive at night on donkeys and all-terrain vehicles, which are given to settlers in illegal outposts through state funding. They cut fences, drive their flocks onto cultivated land, wreck fodder and hay, and sever water hoses and electrical wires.

Hilltop youth - the name given to some of the most ideologically zealous of the settlers - carry wooden or metal sticks during their daily incursions, at times hitting and kicking residents. During the day, they make rounds, bringing their herds through the Palestinian families’ properties, with their flocks consistently feeding on the olive groves beside the Mleihat compound.

Just above the Mleihat compound, a building and a small plot lie half-abandoned by its Palestinian owner. In recent days, settlers cut the fence and brought in 20 camels to keep and graze on the land, which is situated at the centre of this cluster of Bedouin homes located along the southern side of Route 449. The camels, according to an Israeli activist who has documented the area for years and provides protective presence to the communities, were brought in on loan from settlers from an illegal outpost down in the Jordan Valley. Effectively, herds were shifted across the West Bank to reinforce the newest settler push.

"They emptied Ein Samiya, al-Mu'arrajat, Mughayyir al-Deir, Mikhmas, Ras al-Ein al-Auja," remarked Mleihat.

"They want to finish off this one, too, then move on again.”