Israel’s Settler Expansion and Bedouin Displacement in the West Bank: Three Years of Systematic Dispossession

Three years after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza, the occupied West Bank has undergone a sweeping transformation that Palestinian residents and Israeli observers describe as a campaign of mass dispossession. Across the central Jordan Valley and the hills east of Ramallah, Bedouin communities that once grazed livestock freely across open terrain have been forced into ever-shrinking enclaves, their homes demolished or abandoned, their flocks decimated, and their access to water, healthcare, and education severely restricted.

The scale of the displacement is documented in the experiences of families from Ras Ein al-Auja, formerly the largest Bedouin community in the central Jordan Valley. Humanitarian coordinators had once assessed that the village’s displacement was unlikely, given its size and resilience. Yet more than 600 Palestinian inhabitants were ultimately expelled, marking the largest single-community removal of Bedouins in the past three years. The expulsion followed repeated attacks by settlers from four surrounding outposts, according to testimony gathered by Al Jazeera.

A similar fate befell al-Muarrajat, a Bedouin community on private Palestinian land east of Ramallah. In 2023, an outpost called Netzah Harel was established in the middle of the community. On September 23, 2026, weeks before Israel’s parliamentary elections, ministers and lawmakers gathered on a nearby hilltop to inaugurate a new settlement, Metzoke Eretz, which is illegal under international law. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich used the ceremony to praise the settler outpost that had made the settlement possible, describing a method of establishing farms, seizing land, preparing it, turning it into a community, and then moving to the next point.

Smotrich characterized these actions as Zionism rather than real estate, explicitly endorsing a strategy that has been replicated across the West Bank. Dror Etkes, founder of the Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, said Smotrich’s description was accurate except for one omission: the political discourse skips the chapter on Palestinian expulsion. Etkes suggested that politicians avoid explicit references to expulsion to evade potential scrutiny from international criminal courts. “They want it to happen, and they know that it happens, and they let it happen,” he said. Haaretz reported that Metzoke Eretz is one of 19 outposts legalized by the Netanyahu government after nearby Palestinians were violently expelled.

Alia Mleihat, 29, now lives in a tent in al-Awsaj, a few kilometers from her former home in al-Muarrajat. She was forcibly displaced in July 2025. She recalls that the Netzah Harel settlers participated in every attack carried out on families and confiscated sheep under the protection of the Israeli police and army. Her account is echoed by her uncle, Jamal Mleihat, 45, who sits with eight relatives inside a bare concrete-block house on a ridge in al-Awsaj, his daughter Sewar on his lap. Below the ridge, rows of young trees climb a cultivated slope toward a factory, but the ridge itself is rock and dust, now home to about 25 families from al-Muarrajat and others forcibly displaced in the past three years.

Jamal describes life before October 7, 2023, as a time of free movement and relative prosperity. “We were in the pastures – no harassment, we moved around freely,” he said. “We had healthcare. We had a school. We had water in the same encampment. Life was a million times better than this.” Since the Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza, the Israeli government has stepped up raids on the occupied West Bank, while settlers have largely been given free rein to pursue what Al Jazeera describes as a pogrom against Palestinians, with little pushback from within Israel.

Just below Jamal’s shelter, alone on a slope, Muhammad Ghawanmeh lives with his wife and seven children. His toilet does not work; he relies on water tanks and has almost no electricity. The rocky track to the Mleihats’ area is too steep to drive. He built a fence around his house after recent settler attacks and now faces constant drone surveillance from Israeli settlers. Ghawanmeh is from Ras Ein al-Auja, which had been so robust that humanitarian coordinators told Al Jazeera in October 2023 that the village’s displacement was unlikely.

Instead, the community experienced the largest single-community expulsion of Bedouins in the last three years. Ghawanmeh recalls a childhood when the land and water were open and the community lived happily, grazing sheep 10 to 15 kilometers away. Today, he says, “we can’t go 500 metres from the house.” His flock has shrunk from about 300 to roughly 100 physically thinning sheep, which he must now buy fodder for instead of letting them graze on land that he says is largely forbidden by Israeli settlers and the army.

The legalization of outposts like Metzoke Eretz, formerly Netzah Harel, reflects a broader pattern. Under Israeli law, outposts are settlements that are illegal even by Israeli standards, yet the Netanyahu government has moved to legalize them after Palestinian residents were violently expelled. The international community considers all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank illegal under international law, but the pace of expansion and legalization has accelerated dramatically in the past three years.

The displacement of Bedouin communities is not merely a byproduct of settlement expansion but a central mechanism of it. By emptying private Palestinian land of its residents, settlers and their political allies create facts on the ground that make future Palestinian return practically impossible. The method Smotrich described—establish a farm, seize the land, prepare it, turn it into a community, move to the next point—has been applied systematically across the West Bank, with the Israeli police and army providing protection for settler activities.

For families like the Mleihats and the Ghawanmehs, the consequences are immediate and compounding. Loss of grazing land means loss of livelihood. Loss of livelihood forces reliance on purchased fodder and humanitarian aid. Restrictions on movement limit access to healthcare, education, and markets. Constant surveillance and the threat of settler violence create a climate of fear that makes daily life untenable. The psychological toll is evident in the way residents describe their former lives as unrecognizable compared to their present circumstances.

Israeli observers like Etkes argue that the political discourse deliberately obscures the expulsion of Palestinians to avoid international legal accountability. By framing settlement expansion as Zionist pioneering rather than land seizure, politicians like Smotrich present a narrative that resonates with parts of the Israeli public while concealing the displacement of thousands of Palestinians. The result is a policy that proceeds with little domestic opposition and minimal international consequences.

Three years after October 7, the West Bank landscape tells the story of this dispossession. Hills that once hosted Bedouin encampments now host outposts and settlements. Pastures that once supported flocks of sheep are now fenced off or patrolled by settlers and soldiers. Families that once moved freely across kilometers of open land are now confined to rocky ridges with broken toilets and water tanks. The mass dispossession of West Bank Palestinians is not a future threat but a present reality, documented in the testimonies of those who have lost their homes, their livelihoods, and their freedom of movement.