I 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.

Tuesday, December 30^th:  A massive invasion of the village by settlers. Dozens of them come pouring in, first to the vulnerable, peripheral compounds of Salama, Abu Talib, Abu Musa, and others, and then into the village center. Many vehicles. Masked faces. Automatic weapons. Our activists bravely faced them and suffered the blows. Five Palestinians were arrested (on the criminal charge of being Palestinian); they were released after some hours of interrogation. The TV reporter and commentator Arad Nir was also attacked and beaten. One Palestinian was taken to hospital.

Wednesday, December 31^st:  It becomes clear what they aim to do. The violence of Tuesday was only the prelude, or the appetizer. With a huge contingent of violent settlers to guard them, they plow a vast chunk of the village land. Plowing, in the West Bank, is a claim for ownership, including (especially) the ownership of stolen Palestinian land. They tried this some months ago, but when it turned out that they were plowing privately owned land, the Civil Administration put a temporary stop to it. The plow still sits like a ghost among the rocks near Salama’s compound. But this time there is no limit. The ownership issue is still unresolved but may by now be irrelevant. In the course of plowing, they tear up the cables that bring electric power to the village.

Along with the plowing, they set up the rudiments of a new outpost, 150 meters from Salama’s house. We’ve been calling it a “zula,” Hebrew slang for a hiding place, a hang-out flat—in this case, the site of what will soon become another full-scale outpost in the heart of the village. Precisely this scheme worked perfectly in Mu‘arrajat; once the still primitive new outpost was in place, crawling with settlers, near the school and the mosque, the villagers had no choice but to flee. Mu‘arrajat, as you probably remember, is no more. This is what is in store for Ras al-‘Ain, if the settlers win.

Alon, Nadav, and I get there as soon as we can. There were repeated emergency calls in the activists’ WhatsApp Group. The crisis is entirely evident. Is this the death-knell for Ras al-‘Ain, a place even I can call my home? So many villages have fallen to the settlers over the last two years.  But still—the Palestinians of Ras al-‘Ain, and we with them, have not given up.

Below: Today, Salome’s younger son photographs the newly plowed field, now deserted. Photographs: David Shulman

We set off to relieve Ben and Carmel in Salama’s compound; they’ve been on their feet in the field for hours. We see the ‘zula,’ with a single settler, D., the horrid adolescent we know too well, and his herd of sheep. Things are quiet at first, more or less, but as afternoon turns to a stormy evening, he is joined by his no less awful companions. Dense darkness now and heavy rain.  More and more cars, tractors, donkeys appear on the path to the ‘zula’. The settlers light a fire. Then they drive the sheep and goats up the steep hill to a cave where they will spend the night. Far too close for comfort.

Every one of those cars constitutes an existential threat. They are there to add further weight to the embryonic outpost and its lethal menace. The ‘zula’ is just the beginning. They want the Land of Israel to be scrubbed clean of all non-Jews, though to my mind these people, if you can use that word, are nothing like Jews.

Salama tells us he hasn’t slept at all for two nights. And in any case, his situation is miserable. In his words: “No work, no money, no food, no hope, no rest and no relief. The children are scared. All of us are afraid.  The settlers will attack whenever. Is this a life?” 

So we wait, keeping an eye on the outpost and the constant traffic. Some five hours pass. A frozen moon breaks through the black clouds. Salama brings us coffee in tiny paper cups. The violent rainstorm has turned the whole compound into a slippery bog. It’s impossible to walk on the mud, and even driving the car over the path, in the dark, is dicey. One of the settler cars tries to block Alon when he comes back from a short stop at the madafa; he successfully maneuvers past them.  Worst of all, when we have to leave, Salama is shaken, terrified. The night shift activists are arriving momentarily, we have to hand over the activist car to them in the village, but even five minutes without our presence beside him are unbearable. Salama’s beautiful children have gone to bed but perhaps not to sleep. Too much terror.

During the afternoon hours, a Palestinian man from East Jerusalem turns up, claiming he’s the true owner of the plowed land. He’s determined to maintain his claim. Will the courts recognize his ownership? Who can say? Will anything be left of Ras al-‘Ain when the courts  or the Civil Administration finally deliver their pronouncement? The thieving thugs couldn’t care less about the ruling. No one will hold them to the law, least of all the police, the army, and the heinous government.

I write at home, near midnight. It’s warm in the house. I’ll sleep. Maybe some will understand, though I can’t find the right words, but I want to go back to Salama’s place, the fierce cold, the mud, the loneliness, the threat.

*****

At this point only international pressure might save Ras al-Ain. Please write to your congressmen, to Witkoff, to the White House, to MP’s in England, to the Foreign Office, to the papers, to the International Criminal Court in the Hague– anyone who might have some possible influence. The ICC saved the village of Khan al-Ahmar some years ago, when the bulldozers were already beginning to demolish it. I don’t know if they could intervene here.

text: David Shulman © 2026. Photographs and video as credited.

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