‘It’s 2022 and we live in caves’: herders besieged by settlers on West Bank but still clinging to hope

Mahmoud, a 58-year-old shepherd from Umm Fagarah. ‘We’re deprived of the basics of rights,’ he says. ‘The right to a decent home, the right to water. Four of my sons and their families had their homes demolished in 2020’ Photograph: Manal Massalha

Attacks and demolitions in the occupied West Bank by the Israeli military and settlers have left Mahmoud, a shepherd, feeling “under siege”. The 58-year-old pastoralist faces eviction from his home in Umm Fagarah, following an Israeli high court ruling in May that sanctioned the forcible removal of people from eight herder villages in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, to allow for military training. The UN says removing people to make way for the firing range could amount to a war crime.

“Herding is our prime source of livelihood,” says Mahmoud.