Silent ‘genocide’: Israel’s war on Palestinian Bedouin communities in West Bank
Residents of a Bedouin village prepare for house demolitions by Israeli authorities
Fayha Shalash reports in The Palestine Chronicle:
Abu Najeh al-Omari is an 80-year-old Palestinian man. He spends most of his time crying and bemoaning that he and his family were forced to leave their Bedouin community east of Ramallah. “We dream about it day and night,” he told The Palestine Chronicle.
Several months ago, a group of illegal Jewish settlers, protected by the Israeli army and police, forced him and his family to leave their house and their land.
Al-Omari has lived in the Ain Samia area since the 1960s. It is a vast, beautiful land surrounded by mountains, rich in water springs, and characterized by a particularly fertile soil.
Al-Omari, a father of eight children, worked as a farmer and breeder. His family was one of the dozens that formed a Bedouin community, which gained a prominent place in Palestinian society.
Constant Oppression
According to al-Omari, for decades, the Israeli attacks against them have never ceased. He told us that since 1967, Bedouin families in the area have been subjected to harassment and assaults, whether at the hands of Israeli settlers or soldiers.
“From time to time, they would steal our livestock and prevent us from grazing them in several areas, sometimes under the pretext that it was a military zone, and sometimes that the grazing areas were under the control of the Israeli state, and sometimes under the pretext that they were close to the settlements,” he lamented.
“But we came here long before the settlements were built,” he added.