The rocky hills of Wadi as-Seeq, in the heart of the occupied West Bank, feel a long way from the war in Gaza. But the silence of its abandoned homes speaks also of Palestinian suffering. In the last year, the Palestinian Bedouin community there has faced relentless harassment and violence from settlers who set up an illegal outpost next to their community, and destroyed a UK donor-funded school. On 12 October, days after Hamas’s appalling terrorist massacre in southern Israel, an armed group of illegal settlers, reportedly including members of the IDF, descended on the Palestinian Bedouin hamlet. Many of the residents were beaten and abused, before being driven out of their homes.
It was not easy to reach those people, now staying in borrowed tents outside of Ramallah in the village of Taybeh. Travelling there last month, with the West Bank Protection Consortium, under thick fog, our route was blocked by piles of sand, a shot-out car with its lights still on and a soldier urging us to turn around. Reaching Taybeh, we were welcomed with cups of qahwah sadah, a bitter coffee, by people who had nothing, after being forced to leave behind all their possessions. A community leader told me: “The settlers took my home, my memories and the dreams I had for my children.”
