Israel’s new West Bank separation wall closes in on Palestinian communities
Oren Ziv reports in +972 on 9 September 2026:
At the beginning of the year, I met shepherd Tawfiq Hajj Qassem and his 500 sheep — some adorned with colorful fabrics — at the summit of Mount Tammun in the occupied West Bank. For more than 50 years, Hajj Qassem had regularly made the journey from his village of Atuf in the northern Jordan Valley, walking an hour and a half up the mountain to reach a wide open green space, grazing his flock for a few hours, and returning home.
By then, Israel had already announced plans for the “Crimson Thread,” a new separation barrier within the West Bank that is intended to eventually stretch some 300 miles from the occupied Golan Heights to the Red Sea, effectively annexing tens of thousands of dunams of Palestinian land. Plans were also underway to establish a new settler outpost at the summit. But in January, there was still no sign of settlers on the mountain.
“This mountain is the only place where I can breathe, the only place where I’m allowed to graze,” Hajj Qassem told me.
Eight months later, the situation on the ground has drastically transformed. Construction of the barrier is in full swing, which, alongside sustained pressure by settlers and the army, has forced dozens of families to leave. There are also Palestinian communities trapped east of the barrier, struggling to bring in food and water or reach nearby villages and towns for basic services.
From a new outpost on Mount Tammun, known as “Tamon,” settlers in military fatigues now roam the area and terrorize Palestinian residents, and one even drives a military Hummer. The outpost is one of 19 settlements whose establishment was announced last year by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — including Ganim and Kadim, two West Bank settlements evacuated during Israel’s 2005 “disengagement” from Gaza.