After several weeks of enforced rest—not an art I have perfected, or even practiced—I am back in Palestine. I yearned for this. Rain, cold winds, grey-to-black clouds, the occasional flicker of sunlight, mountains as green as Ireland, the sheep happily eating their fill, the access road slippery with mud, a sharp fragrance in the air that almost hints of spring—it’s one kind of happiness.
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It happened fast, much faster than expected. Once the more isolated neighborhoods of Salameh and Abu Talib and Abu Musa were gone, their people expelled, the rest of the villagers also began to dismantle their homes and burn whatever they couldn’t take with them.
Continue readingI knew it was coming. I could feel it in my body, also in the air. For the last two or three weeks, settler harassment was constantly intensifying. You could see they were planning something big. They brought a settler called Micha Sudai down from the hill country to take charge of the ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley. Sudai has a reputation for being brutal and effective. Now he’s in the outpost just a few yards away from Ras al-‘Ain.
Afternoon shift. The sun is racing toward sunset. Naif comes to say hello and chat. He’s very shaken by what happened last night, just a few minutes’ walk from his home. A family that originally lived in the village had moved out to the ‘Auja townlet down the road; they couldn’t take the endless harassment and violence. Ironically, it was this same family that was attacked last night by some 20 masked, armed settlers. They did what settlers do best: turned the house upside down, smashed whatever was smashable, and viciously attacked the father, his wife, and several children. The father was covered in blood, with a gaping hole in his skull. He’s in hospital in Ramallah. The others are in hospital in Jericho.
Continue readingWe sent this message, with no pictures, to our email list last month. Some of our correspondents thought that it should be posted on our blog, so we offer it here:
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*NB: Please read to the end. Or skip the rest and go directly to the end.
Hanady’s sitting room is a shrine to her late husband, 31-year-old Awdah Hathaleen, killed in cold blood in July by a settler who was punished with three days of house arrest. Only a small diamond-shaped design of sequins to break the unrelenting darkness of her black draped clothing, Hanady tells me that everything is gone for her: everything left with Awdah: her home life, her future, her dreams, the list goes on.
Note: While I cannot photograph the faces of the Bedouin women of Umm al-Khair, I am encouraged to photograph the children.
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October 19, 2025
Where are the dogs of Ras al-‘Ain? There used to be lots of them. Together with the donkeys and the out-of-synch roosters, they performed the nocturnal symphony from midnight to dawn. They had a mission in life: they could warn you if settlers were invading the Palestinian houses and sheepfolds. But now most of them are gone. We found out why. The settlers from the outpost threw cut-off heads of chickens, doctored with poison, into the village; the dogs died, and apparently some of the jackals and the wolf also died. One lonely, mournful dog still haunts the madafeh, where we sleep. He seems glad to have company.
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David:
I’m sorry to say that these recent blog reports keep turning into obituaries, including the loss of the lovely village of Mu‘arrajat (but see below). This is life in the Occupation. People, Palestinians, are killed routinely, and with total impunity, by the settlers. As Awdah himself said in an interview two weeks before he was murdered, “The life here is not a life anymore.
Continue readingI used to be afraid to cross the road and look at my house like a stranger.
Today, what I feared has happened.
Today, we are strangers — as if the house was never ours, as if we never drank tea there, as if we never played there.
We are strangers.
When you pass by, ask the house: Where are your residents? Where is your family? Where are your loved ones?
Our names are still there on the wall — all the names of my family.
I can never forget Ma’arajat. Every time I pass through that road, I will cry for it.
Life ended after Ma’arajat. —- Aliya
