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.

By the time I reached Ras al-‘Ain yesterday evening, most of the families had already left or were in the final stages of leaving. Some thirteen families of the Jahalin tribe were still in place, but Naif said that within a day or two only two families would remain. Naif was planning to hang on until the High Court rules on Ras al-‘Ain in about two weeks. A last shiver of cold hope. But we don’t expect any succor from the court.

We know where some of the families are going—sites scattered throughout the Jordan Valley but all of them in Area A, theoretically safe from settler raids (however, a few weeks ago there was a particularly vicious settler attack in Dyuk, in Area A).

In the midst of dismantling and packing up, they still need protection. The noxious settlers who have taken over the village are still attacking, for the fun of it. Yesterday a lunatic criminal settler, who was arrested just a week ago for spraying pepper gas at leftist “anarchists” in a demonstration, turned up at the Madafeh and “peppered” two of the activists, one very badly. They had to pour five gallons of water into his eyes before they stopped burning. I know how that feels, it’s one of the worst tortures known to humans. You feel like you’re blinded for life.

It’s bitter cold now in the desert. Doron, who manages the shifts, drives me through the Yatawi compounds in the eastern end of the village. Most of the households are no longer there. Peering into the dark I see the eerie skeletons of houses torn apart, their forlorn posts and pillars still standing amidst bountiful fruit trees and vines. We follow the twists and turns on the hard earthen paths, silent now; haunted by names that we know.

Later Doron sends me and another David, an experienced activist, to sleep in the grounds that belonged to our friend Jamal.  Jamal and his family are gone, but Ali and a fairly large contingent of relatives are still there, frantically taking everything apart. Fresh laundry still stirs in the wind over the ruins of their homes.  Some things—fortunately– just go on as before. Ali welcomes us, thanks us for being there, leads us into a shack where we will spend the night. Empty, but with two mattresses and some pillows on the floor, and we have thick winter blankets from the Madafeh. We try to sleep. Around midnight a boisterous group of six or seven young Palestinian men come in; they want us to move into another room closer to the main road, where the danger of settler raids is somewhat greater. We ask them to let us go back to sleep. No. They won’t give up. But what they really want, we think, is just to have a party and chat and laugh over coffee. Eventually, they leave us in peace. We’re only two minutes away from the road.

But there is something of interest here. Years ago I took our grandson Inbal to the village of Khan al-Ahmar, on the highway south from Jerusalem. He was 13 years old. Khan al-Ahmar was slated for demolition. I slept there for several nights in anticipation of the destruction—and indeed the army bulldozers had already begun their gruesome work. Inbal found a friend, they kicked a ball around, and he met the Mukhtar. When we left toward evening, Inbal said to me: “Saba, these people are about to lose everything they have, but they don’t seem sad.” He was right about that. I’ve seen it several times. Put this cheerful mien down to something deep inside Palestinian hearts—a form of resilience, and insouciance, in the face of cruelty and oppression. I saw it again in Ras al-‘Ain.

It feels strange to sleep, or to try to sleep, in a house that will be torn down tomorrow, as if tomorrow has already begun and the walls and window might vanish at any moment. Always remember that a house is alive, like all of us. Impermanence. Evanescence. The Buddhist virtues. But I’m not so good at that. I clutch at everything and everyone I love. Ask my wife Eileen. I don’t let go. And I don’t forgive. I wake at 2:30, step outside to see the stars in the icy sky. It’s one of the wonders of Ras al-‘Ain:  the burning clarity of the night. Orion, the winter constellation, seems to wave at me. Then I can’t forget, I huddle in the blanket and try to sleep, but now it’s the burning anger that grips me. Outrage. Tremendous whirlpools of fury. I no longer hate the settlers—I usually feel a mélange of disgust and pity for the younger ones, they are tools, taught to kill, in the hands of Netanyahu and his criminal gang—but the anger flooding my body-mind (they’re the same thing) doesn’t relent. If only there was some way to stop the onslaught. And the familiar, utterly useless thought pops up inside me:  how did the Jews, once given to charity and kindness, their historic role, manage to kill compassion in order to revel in inflicting pain? To be honest, we know too well how it happened. And it’s getting worse by the hour.

Sunrise through cloud and rain over an emptied-out village. How I have loved it. The crooked half-asphalt-paved, potholed path from the entrance to the Madafeh. The amazingly dependable dawn. The rocky, pebbly, sandy hills where the sheep and goats once grazed before the settlers put a stop to that. The ancient aqueduct flowing with clean water. The desert smells. The chorus of dogs and donkeys, every night; some roosters, too. The fierce summer heat. The rough and melodic Bedouin Arabic. Our beloved friend Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him. And above all our many friends of these years, the good, generous people endowed with an instinct for courage and the inimitable graciousness of the host. I’m sorry, I can’t go on with this list any farther.

As the Book of Lamentation says: “How can it be that she, our home, once throbbing with people, now sits in loneliness. She is in exile. She finds no rest. Those who have hunted her have caught her. Her paths are in mourning, her gates desolate. She dwells in bitterness. Ve-hi mar lah.”

Tonight we learn that Naif, too, is leaving with his family. He’s the last. Ras al-‘Ain, a place of wonder, is no more.

text: David Shulman © 2026. Photographs as credited. We are grateful to Dood Evan for permission to use his photographs from January 1.

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Slideshow. Ras al-‘Ain, 2024-2025:

photographs: Margaret Olin (to navigate, use arrows on the side of the photographs)