The Israeli settlers quietly waging war on the Palestinian countryside
A shepherd in Mukhmas
Jessica Buxbaum reports in Mondoweiss on 19 April 2025 :
While having tea in the village of Jaba in the southern Jordan Valley, Rabbi Arik Ascherman’s phone rang. An Israeli settler was grazing his flock on private Palestinian land in the nearby Bedouin village of Mukhmas. Ascherman, founder and director of the Israeli human rights NGO, Torat Tzedek, drove to Mukhmas, donned body armor, and confronted the settler and his sheep with a siren-blaring bullhorn in an attempt to push the settler off Palestinian land.
Settler attacks like these have become routine in recent years throughout the Jordan Valley. The violence, ranging from stone-throwing to livestock theft to slashing bales of hay, is perpetrated by settlers from surrounding, newly-erected outposts — settlements built without official authorization from Israel’s government and therefore illegal under Israeli law. In Mukhmas, for instance, four outposts, established within the last three years, now encircle the pastoral community and wreak havoc daily.
“After October 7, it has become more violent,” Khader Muhammad Musa Ka’abneh, a Mukhmas resident, told Mondoweiss. “They honk their horns in the middle of the night to scare the kids. They park their cars right where we park. They graze their cows on our land.”
In the village of Jaba, an outpost was established in February 2025, and within 10 days of its construction, settlers raided and burned down two homes and a car as well as injuring several residents during the attack. Ever since, settlers have regularly assaulted Jaba — throwing nails on the road to puncture Palestinian tires, hurling stones into the village’s homes, and driving their sheep up to Jaba’s houses.