Now all the days are hard.

At Fasa’il, ‘Abed and Tahrir are barely hanging on to their home. They were until recently one among six families situated on a relatively open stretch of land between the urban center of Fasa’il and the Jordan Valley highway. The settlers have been at their throats for a long time. The five other families have fled. We don’t know how long ‘Abed and Tahrir and their children can last there.

Tahrir, an articulate, lucid, good-hearted woman, has cardiac problems along with asthma and diabetes. Recently she went through an angioplasty. She tires easily. She needs to see the doctor in the hospital, but it’s not easy to do that. She’s trying to keep the home and family intact. ‘Abed is a strong man who lives with hourly terror. The sadistic settlers bring their flocks right up to the door of ‘Abed’s home, among other cruel and constant tortures. They also cut open one of the large water tanks behind the house and drained the water. The threat of physical attack never abates. Our activists are there every day, we don’t leave them alone, but it’s not enough. Suppose your children were living in this nightmare.

Midmorning: Alon and I are sent to a neighborhood on the outskirts of Ramun, in the hill country overlooking the Valley. ‘Abed is unhappy to see us go, though Erika, Sandy, and Rama are staying with him and Tahrir. Those are the kind of hard choices we have to make now. Last night there was a pogrom in Ramun, more specifically, in a somewhat isolated, therefore extremely vulnerable, neighborhood of the town. The settler terrorists did as Israeli settlers do. They came in from the adjacent outposts with metal clubs with nails stuck in them for good measure. There were several dozens of them. They beat up whoever they could find. Fired live ammunition. Four Palestinians ended up in hospital with head wounds. The settlers’ greed:  they stole around 80 sheep, a huge loss for the owners, and they also stole some 4000 Israeli shekels in cash and 5000 Jordanian dinars. The Ramun people are the poorest of the poor. Now their homes are also gone.

Twelve families driven into exile. For most of them, this is the second time. I knew a few of them from the village of Wadi a-Siq. In October 2023 they were savagely attacked by armed settlers who arrested all the village men and the Israeli peace activists who were with them; they told them they were going to kill them all. After hours of torture, the army arrived and released them. But the shepherds of Wadi al-Siq could no longer live there. They moved to Ramun, close to the town, which offered some protection. Last night the horror repeated itself there.

Today is the first day of Ramadan, a festive moment. But one of the villagers says when we arrive, “It’s a bitter, bitter day for us.” Ahmad blesses us for coming. He says, “They—the settlers—are not Jews. We know what the Jews are like. They don’t do things like this.” It’s not the first time I’ve heard these words from Palestinians. They’re right. They know us better than the Jews know themselves. The murderous settlers were presumably born Jewish, a technicality, but there is nothing Jewish about them or inside them—only hatred for Arabs, or for all non-Jews, or for us, or for any human thing, or hatred for its own sweet sake, for deep pleasure, especially when they attack, wound, or kill.

‘Ali speaks at length of his vision of what the future must be, will be. It’s no different from what I have heard from dozens of Palestinians over the years. “Jews and Palestinian Arabs will share the land and live peacefully with one another, with mutual respect and in friendship. There is no reason to be trapped in war and conflict. We belong together, we belong to one another.”

The children have already been evacuated. Like we saw in Ras al-‘Ain, the men are now dismantling their homes. I ask ‘Ali where they will go. “We have nowhere to go. There is no somewhere.” The poles that held up their tents come down with a hollow clank, a death-rattle for a home. One by one the houses fall. A fierce spring wind is blowing, the sun is burning, these lives are flickering, and there is no one in the world who can stop this. Every one of these death-dealing settlers should be in jail along with the satanic teachers and elders who have poisoned their minds and put weapons in their hands. Israel has a government and an army that allow this to happen, that make it happen, that relish it as it happens. There will be no forgiveness. I, for one, will never forget.

One of the settlers, a young boy, is standing guard with his herd of sheep at the entrance to the ravaged village. He’s too young and too distorted to be photographed, already staggering under the load of bad karma.

After two hours or so we have to get back to ‘Abed; I’d promised him we would return. I, too, stagger under the load of evil I have seen.

*****

Updates:

Later that afternoon Arik Ascherman, the tireless savior of Palestinians in the central West Bank and beyond, was arrested at Ramun by dull-witted soldiers. They handcuffed him, blindfolded him, and threw him into the army jeep.  He was released after several hours.

Two nights after the pogrom, the settlers returned and set fire to four or five of the remaining homes. Nothing is left of the tents and huts on the outskirts of Ramun, and the people who lived there have scattered. No end to sorrow.

*****

text: David Shulman ©2026. Photographs as credited ©2026. We are grateful to Alon Meir, Yotam Weissman, and Oren Ziv for access to images.