Just past Hizma Junction, on our way to Ras al-‘Ain, we get the news. The Palestinians of Magha’ir a-Dir are taking apart their village and then they will be gone.

It happened fast, but after years of violent harassment. On Sunday a group of settlers invaded the village and began constructing a new outpost there, only a few yards away from the houses and sheepfolds. We are “used” to new illegal outposts, peopled by extremist thugs, cropping up all over the West Bank, but until now they’ve been situated at some minimal distance from the Palestinian villages they aim to destroy. This time the outpost is actually inside the village. The police, true to their new profile under the orders of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National (In)security, claimed that the outpost was perfectly legal, so they refused to come; and the army likewise stayed aloof, despite all our efforts to get them to intervene (and despite stop-work orders from the Civil Administration). This is the new Israel—a lot like the old Israel, yet by now a black caricature of its former self.

We know the village well. Several times I watched over them before dawn when they drew water from a pump near the main road. Settlers regularly tried to keep them away from the water. And I was in the village just some three weeks ago. We heard the familiar litany of daily attacks, thefts, prevention of grazing, and intrusions. Still, they were hanging on. I felt strongly for the children. But the new outpost broke their backs. They know all too well what comes next. So the beautiful village of Magha’ir a-Dir, one of the loveliest in Palestine, has been murdered. It joins the list of nearly 60 villages driven off their lands in the last two years.

To tell the truth, I’m devastated. We are losing this battle. How can I go on living in my own home when the people of Magha’ir a-Dir have been driven from theirs? And then there are the 18,000 or so Palestinian children we have killed in Gaza. And the women. And the other innocents. We see the pictures of fathers carrying their dead children in shrouds through the ruins. They give me no rest. Death stalks our eyes, our minds, and, if we sleep, our dreams.

We can’t stop this war, though maybe half of the country is against it. In any case, the betrayal of everything that matters is now complete.

We are watching brutal ethnic cleansing in Area C and, to some extent now, also in Area B, as government policy. Netanyahu stands behind it. If he didn’t, he could stop it in a second.

It’s still light when we reach Ras al-‘Ain, and already we have our orders. In the last day or two, settlers have put up what are called rujum, in Arabic—piles of rocks that demarcate a site, perhaps a border, perhaps a walking trail. One sees them everywhere in the desert. But the fear is that these new ones are the beginning of what just happened in Magha’ir a-Dir. Staking out the site, close to Abu Salama’s compound. We need to send a “location” to bring the police or army to see what is happening, not that this will help much.

But we hear from Na’if at the entrance to the village that there is a large posse of settler vehicles near the outpost closest to Ras al-‘Ain; we can see them clearly with binoculars from the Madafeh. Muhammad says it’s best to wait a bit; the settlers will see us if we approach the rujum, and then what? Muhammad says: “You weren’t satisfied with the kicks and blows you took last time?”

That was when he sent us to document the settlers’ strategic blockages in the aqueduct, and the thugs surrounded us and attacked. It seems that along with the blockages, the Israeli pumping station higher up in the hills has started working again, after a hiatus of some years. It sucks up all the water.  So the village buys water every day in Auja. It’s expensive, and they have no money. Muhammad says: “It’s expensive, but that’s not the worst of it. It’s the whole system—settlers, constant violence and invasions, police and army backing them up, threats, terror every day—that is destroying us.”

Through much of the evening and then into the night, the emergency calls come in. “Three settlers are standing at the entrance to the village. Go and check this out. Hurry. Keep them away from us.” By the time we get there, they are gone. At least we now manage to send a “location” for the rujum. A little later, we hear from Mu’arrajat that settlers are inside the village. We rush over. It’s dark and almost impossible to find our way to Amal’s house, high up on the hill, where they were seen. Max is driving, and good at it; we barely manage to trace the outline of the gravel-and-dirt path uphill. The settler has gone. We sit a while with Faraj to be sure; he asks us if we could sleep in Mu‘arrajat tonight. They lay out cots and blankets for us in one of the rooms. Against all odds, believe it or not, I’m sort of happy. This is where I have to be.

It’s as if any movement, any noise, a footfall, a falling leaf, a barking dog, a cat crossing the path, an unfamiliar human voice, can set off the ever-present terror. The danger is real. At 1:00 we are wakened because the infamous settler from nearby Mevoot Yericho is prowling the village, near the school. Groggy, we somehow navigate the goat paths in the car; thick darkness envelops us, and the settler or settlers have again melted back into the night. So it goes. Any day or night in these villages is punctuated by the endless cries for help. You can feel their fear palpably, you carry it in your body, especially your heart. And there are the times when the settlers come en masse to carry out a pogrom, burning houses, burning cars, burning down the mosque, beating whoever is there in the homes, stealing sheep, shooting. Earlier this week we got a video from Mu‘arrajat of a masked settler on horseback, in broad daylight, next to the water tanker they have filled up in Auja to get them through the day. The settler gets off his horse, looks left and right, then opens the faucet of the tanker, and the precious water spurts out in a steady stream, soaking the sand. In summer, including this month, you can’t live more than a few hours in the Jordan Valley without water.

Only a week or so ago, five or six settlers broke into a family’s home in this village and, just for the fun of it, attacked everyone with pepper spray—women, children, the husband. From experience I can tell you that it’s torture. You think you’ve gone blind. Your eyes are on fire. It can take hours before the excruciating pain abates. Our comrade Yonatan got a heavy dose of it recently and was taken to hospital. The settlers no doubt tell themselves that they have a purpose, even an ideology—grabbing all the land for the Jews—but sheer sadistic delight plays a big part in it. In Magha’ir a-Dir, the last trucks loaded with a few treasured possessions have now left, who knows to where. Yesterday, while some of the villagers were still working at removing usable roofs and fences, the settlers assaulted them brutally. Several Palestinians were injured, and two of our activists were hit (one now in hospital). It’s not enough that these people have been expelled from their homes; settler hatred is so intense that they shoot and throw rocks at them while they’re trying to save something of their former lives as they leave.

And now there’s no water in Ras al-‘Ain.*

**As we expected, today the settlers tried to apply the trick that worked so well at Magha’ir a-Dir to both Mu‘arrajat and Ras al-‘Ain. They started building their new outposts inside the villages. Activists in large numbers (for us) immediately made their way there. The police came, too. For the moment, the Civil Administration has issued stop-work orders, and the settlers retreated. But we can assume they’ll be back. Maybe, with some luck and determination, we can still keep these villages alive. 

Text: David Shulman © 2025. Photographs as credited, © 2025.

Mu’arrajat, 2024. Photograph: Margaret Olin

Margaret Olin and David Shulman, The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine 2024. Order from Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press or from an online or local bookseller.