Oren Ziv and Shatha Yaish report:

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.”

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. [Continue reading…]