‘The most successful land-grab strategy since 1967’ as settlers push Bedouins off West Bank territory

Sliman al-Zawahri, 52, prays in the empty village of Ein Rashash in Area C of the West Bank. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

The tiny settlement overlooking the Bedouin village of Ein Rashash is named “Angels of Peace”, but, says Sliman al-Zawahri, its residents have visited only violence, fear and despair on his family.

This week the Bedouin community packed up most of their belongings and drove all the women, children and elderly people from the West Bank ridge they had called home for nearly four decades, perched above a spring and beside an archaeological site.