Displacement Threat to 47 Palestinian Families in the Jordan Valley

Human-rights organization B’Tselem reported that 47 Palestinian families—more than 300 individuals, about half of them children—face imminent displacement from their homes in the northern Jordan Valley. The group says Israeli forces and settlers cut the water pipes that supplied Ras al-Ahmar, Al-Thaala and eastern Atouf, leaving the residents without water for drinking, irrigation and livestock.

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The affected villages lie in Area C of the West Bank, where Israeli military authority applies. At the same time, the Israeli military is undertaking a digging project to extend a separation barrier that, as announced a year earlier, will run roughly 22 kilometres from Ein Shibli to the Tayasir checkpoint. B’Tselem argues that the barrier work and repeated attacks on water infrastructure are intended to force the remaining Palestinian communities out, thereby facilitating the de-facto annexation of thousands of acres of farmland.

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The Israeli military described the excavation as a security operation aimed at “operational control” to prevent weapons smuggling and thwart terrorist threats in the Jordan Valley. IDF sources emphasized that any damage to water lines is incidental to the barrier construction and reiterated that the families’ settlements are illegal under Israeli law.

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• “Forty-seven Palestinian families, comprising more than 300 people, nearly half of them children, face the risk of imminent displacement from their homes in the northern Jordan Valley,” — B’Tselem — B’Tselem

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