With West Bank annexation in the air, settlers revel in their impunity
Palestinians load trucks with their belongings as they evacuate the village of Al-Muarrajat in the West Bank, 4 July 2025
Oren Ziv and Shatha Yaish report in +972 on 9 July 2025:
Over the span of two days, one of the last remaining Palestinian communities between Ramallah and Jericho was uprooted from its land.
On the evening of July 2, dozens of Israeli settlers descended on the West Bank shepherding village of Al-Muarrajat. They broke into homes, stole around 60 sheep, and erected a small outpost inside the village. By the next morning, settlers were seen sitting alongside Israeli soldiers at the newly built outpost, now moved just meters from the village school.
Fearing further theft, residents began evacuating their livestock. By Friday, families were packing their belongings and leaving en masse. Thirty families — 177 people in total — were forced out, all but erasing the community. “Residents were forced to leave at gunpoint,” said 28-year-old Aaliyah Malihat, a local activist, as her family gathered their possessions. “People have nowhere to go. They’re scattering to nearby villages.”
Israeli settlers attack the village of Turmus Ayya in the West Bank, 26 June 2025
Before 1948, Al-Muarrajat’s residents lived in the Naqab/Negev desert. Since then, they’ve been displaced multiple times, first by Israeli military orders, later by settler expansion. For many, this was the third or fourth time they’ve been uprooted. But even after fleeing Al-Muarrajat, their ordeal continued.
“We went to Aqbat Jaber refugee camp in Jericho,” Malihat recounted to +972. “But on Monday, settlers came again and tried to take some of our sheep. Israeli soldiers arrived with them. They surrounded us, took our IDs and phones, and led the settlers through our homes. Then they said we had three hours to leave or we’d lose our lives.
“It’s painful,” she continued, speaking from the bare hill on the outskirts of Jericho to which she and dozens of her family members had fled. Her old home in Al-Muarrajat, now destroyed, could clearly be seen just a few kilometers away.