The Rift Valley of Palestine (Al-Aghwar): Present Realities and Future Prospects

Ever since it occupied the West Bank in 1967, Israel has had its eye on the Rift Valley of Palestine (hereinafter Al-Aghwar). Immediately after the end of military operations, the Alon Plan was unveiled at an ordinary Israeli cabinet meeting held on June 14, 1967.[1] One section of that plan calls for annexing Al-Aghwar as part of post-war arrangements, since these constitute a strategic target for Israel. Al-Aghwar is vast in area, constituting some 30% of the total area of the West Bank and with a population of around 54,731. Israel occupied large areas of Al-Aghwar under various pretexts (see attached map). The Palestinian communities therein are diverse in nature. They include a major city (Jericho) two refugee camps (`Aqabat Jabr and `Ayn al-Sultan) and about 13 villages, together with several herding and Bedouin encampments spread along the two regions of Al-Ghawr and Shafa al-Ghawr (See Map 1).

Map 1: Confiscation of land in the Jordan Valley

Source: Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem, Arij

The peace plan known as the “Deal of the Century”, proposed by former president Donald Trump and announced on January 28, 2020, is now suspended. That plan included the annexation of Al-Aghwar except for the city of Jericho and the villages and refugee camps in its vicinity[2] but without officially declaring the annexation of Al-Aghwar. However, Zionist policy is in effect implementing that plan. Zionist measures aimed at effecting radical demographic changes in the Al-Aghwar region have intensified, especially as regards expulsion of its inhabitants. This paper discusses two related topics having to do with the events of October 7 last, namely, ensuring that no Palestinian resistance is to arise in this region, and the expulsion of the herding and Bedouin communities.

Picture 1: Wall maintenance after damage

Source: Photographed by Rashid Adnan Abu Zbaida

Picture 2: Traces of wall damage

Source: Photographed by Rashid Adnan Abu Zbaida

In Al-Aghwar there appeared a group resisting occupation and known as the “Jericho Brigade”[3], coinciding with the formation of other armed resistance groups in the West Bank to respond to Zionist violence led by Israeli ministers in an extreme-right and terrorist cabinet. The `Aqabat Jabr refugee camp has become a center of resistance in Jericho and the Jericho Brigade has announced responsibility for numerous military operations against Israeli soldiers and settlers in Al-Aghwar, many of whom were killed or wounded. Two young inhabitants of Al-Aghwar were martyred under the pretext that they were planning military actions against the occupying army and the settlers.[4] These events may be considered novel in Al-Aghwar since most resistance in Al-Aghwar had thus far been carried out by villagers living in areas overlooking the region. In addition, the inhabitants speak of several operations carried out by the Israeli army in pursuit of infiltrators and arms smugglers.[5] The two pictures above (numbers 1 and 2) show what is purported to be a smuggling area[6]. Thus, the Al-Aghwar region can no longer be considered stable security-wise as had been the case in earlier decades but instead the city of Jericho and its camps in particular have become another hot spot. Jericho has more than once been subjected to a very intense siege where all roads leading to it have been closed, the last being the siege which began on October 7 and is still in effect today. Palestinians have to wait for long hours, often 5 or more to be allowed to enter or leave the city through its four principal entry points. The army of occupation has also carried out several assaults on the city and its camps in an attempt to end resistance. Thus, the occupation regime carries out collective punishment against Jericho’s inhabitants to pressure them to discourage their youth from joining the resistance movement. This is especially the case because the economy of the city greatly depends upon internal and external tourism, especially winter tourism, in addition to the agricultural sector which has been severely affected by the siege. This reminds us of the siege of Nablus for many years after the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the subsequent destruction of that city’s economic life.

Picture 3: Settler's house in the Bedouin style

Source: Photographed by Ahmad Heneiti

Picture 4: Settler herding sheep in the Bedouin style

Source: Photographed by Ahmad Heneiti

The second topic of discussion is the Bedouin and herding communities. The expulsion of the Bedouins is a long-standing Zionist policy which sought to strangle them by expelling them or by destroying what they built or by forbidding them to erect any structures or by confiscating their property and denying them any services or any access to infrastructures. The Bedouins have succeeded in holding out and remaining in their dwelling places, relying upon their traditional economy of herding. However, it seems that the Zionist leadership, grown tired of the fact that most Palestinians refused to leave Al-Aghwar, or else tired of the very slow pace in expelling them which has lasted for decades, has now resorted to new measures. These consist of cooperation with settlers more ready to practice violence and these latter have now formed individual herding settlements made up of one or two houses (see picture 3) or else mobile herding units. These settlers practice a herding existence (see picture 4) and are always found amidst Palestinian herding communities. Beginning in 2017 and until 2022 around 53 herding units have been formed[7] and these carry out daily attacks against Bedouin and herding encampments and against shepherds grazing their flocks since they live permanently in lands used by Bedouins and herders.  Numerous attacks have been documented such as bodily assaults, terrorizing the population by throwing stones or firing upon them, theft or destruction of property, confiscating flocks of sheep, closing roads, preventing access to places of residence, destruction of water pipes and solar panels, and demolishing schools (see picture 5). Hence, settler terrorism represents a turning point in Zionist policy aimed against inhabitants of Al-Aghwar, especially the Bedouin communities found throughout that region.[8] (see pictures 6 and 7).

Picture 5: Vandalism of a school in Ein Samiya

Source: Photographed by Ahmad Heneiti

The events of October 7, 2023, presented a golden opportunity for the Zionist occupation to expel the Bedouins. The occupation regime and the settlers seized the chance of war to double their efforts to expel the Bedouins and “cleanse” large areas of Al-Aghwar of Palestinians. A declaration of war means “placing Israel, its inhabitants and their civic institutions under Emergency Laws, and entrusting the commanders of the army inside Israel to act as required by war, which in effect means bypassing the political leadership’s permission for every military operation”.[9] National security is at present overseen by the extremist Minister Itamar Ben Gvir who has armed the settlers, and these now constitute a veritable army in the West Bank, especially since most settlers are regular army soldiers or reservists. As a result, assaults by the settlers and the regular army against Palestinians in the West Bank, especially the Bedouins and herders, have become interwoven and interlinked and are aimed at their eviction.  The Bedouins who have been attacked state that the settlers who attacked them were at times dressed like civilians and at others were in military uniform and occasionally were wearing both. The B’Tselem Center captures this affinity between the settlers and the Zionist regime in the following formula: “Settler violence=State violence”[10]. To quote a report issued by the MADAR Center: “It is worth emphasizing that what is happening inside the West Bank since October 7 is not merely a sharp increase in settler attacks but that an institutional transformation has occurred in the role of the settlement councils which now enjoy far greater powers than before and broader fields of action. It appears that this coincides with an ‘understanding’ on the part of the Israeli army that these settlements are also playing a role in defending the ‘Land of Israel’ but in their own ‘Biblical settlement manner.’”[11]

Picture 6: Displacement of Bedouins from Ein Samiya

Source: Photographed by Ahmad Heneiti

Picture 7: Traces of the displacement of Bedouins from Al-Ma'arajat

Source: Photographed by Ahmad Heneiti

In recent days, attacks by settlers against herders and Bedouin communities, backed by the Israeli army and police, have become more frequent. Whereas the Zionist regime had been implementing policies derived from older imperialist regulations to do with such matters as demolitions, expulsions and other such regulations that could take months or even years to implement (as the Bedouins put it “We buy time”), the settlers’ attacks are now direct and sudden and are at all times aimed against herder communities. The entire community is targeted, including women and children and their property is seized, especially their flocks. In its reports, the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) has counted 3099 separate attacks by the occupation regime and the settlers in the West Bank in the period between October 1 and December 6, 2023[12], as a result of which the settlers have been able to expel tens of families living in the Al-Aghwar and Shafa al-Ghawr regions, which one might call the “Eastern Isolation Region”. Large areas have been emptied of Bedouins and herders who were driven towards Palestinian villages and towns lying outside the proposed annexation area.[13] Thus, tens of Bedouin and herder houses and encampments have for decades existed alongside the winding road between Ramallah and Jericho, but one who travels along this road today sees only ruins of houses and empty and destroyed paddocks. The same obtains on the eastern part of the road which links the two villages of Mikhmas and Duma, or what the occupation calls the “Alon Road.” Thus, all Bedouins and herders living in the regions of `Ayn Samia, Ras al-Tin, al-Tabbun, Wadi al-Siq and elsewhere have been driven out.[14]

Map 2: Forcibly displaced communities

Source: Map prepared by Karam Naboot and B'Tselem for forced displacement of isolated communities and families in Area C under the cover of war

The chart below, which documents cases of forcible eviction of Bedouins and herders, indicates that the Israeli government is following a deliberately planned policy in their evictions. All the communities evicted completely have less than 100 inhabitants except for 3 communities which have more inhabitants. This shows that the occupation regime is evicting small communities whose houses are spread wide. These can be more easily targeted and terrorized, and their eviction can rapidly be accomplished. It now appears that the occupation, having succeeded in expelling relatively small communities, are beginning to target larger communities such as the Ka`abneh Bedouin community which has about 800 inhabitants and is located at the bottom of the winding mountain road nearest to Jericho. Thus, at midnight on Tuesday, November 29, 2023, the settlers attacked the Ka`abneh community, assaulted its women, and carried away 26 head of sheep, alleging the Bedouins had stolen them from the settlers. On the evening of the following day, the Israeli army broke into the community looking for wanted individuals, by which is meant all the young males who had resisted the attacks of the settlers. These events happen again and again in most Bedouin and herder communities.[15]

Map 3: Deal of the Century

Source: This is what the shape of the Palestinian state will be according to Trump's peace plan | Political News | Al Jazeera Net (aljazeera.net)

The chart below indicates the geographical regions that the occupation regime is targeting for eviction (see Map 2)[16] (16). In addition to the communities mentioned in this chart, the B’Tselem Center is monitoring the assaults by settlers and the army on some 37 communities to the south of Hebron, 12 of which are located in the Al-Ghawr and Shafa al-Ghawr region, and 22 to the south of Hebron. All these communities are found in areas to be annexed as per the “Deal of the Century” plan (see Map 3), a matter which shows that the settler attacks are neither haphazard nor without purpose but instead are planned and run by Zionist figures in the government with a view to accomplishing their objectives.

Conclusion

The Zionist occupation of al-Aghwar focuses its attention on two issues: first, ensuring security by ending any participation in resistance, especially armed resistance, by inhabitants of al-Aghwar; and, second, evicting the Bedouin and herders as a first step to effect the demographic transformation congruent with the annexation plan. The Israeli occupation, both army and settlers, are working rapidly, and exploiting their powers during a state of war to “cleanse” vast areas of Al-Aghwar and the regions south of Hebron from Bedouin and herder communities. This will inevitably result in emptying that region of its traditional herding economy which uses large areas of land as pastures. In the past few years, the occupation regime has succeeded in evicting tens of Bedouin and herder communities, especially those which consist of a few families, but is now engaged in attacking communities numbering hundreds of families, as is the case with the Ka`abneh Bedouin community which has about 800 inhabitants. The regime’s success in its eviction plan in the regions of Hebron, east Ramallah and Tubas will encourage that regime to further implement its designs, using the same methods with the Bedouins east of Jerusalem, and allowing the regime to put into effect its Plan E1.

Zionist policy towards al-Aghwar as set out above is based upon creating facts on the ground, irrespective of the nature of the Zionist government concerned, whether leftist, rightist or extreme rightist, a policy which depends upon the ability to implement Zionist plans and practices. But official, i.e. public annexation, depends upon opportunities that may arise and upon intra-Zionist rivalries that are related to achieving electoral and political gains by prominent Zionist activists on the domestic level.

As for stopping evictions, these depend on the Palestinian scene and its ability to mobilize a world-wide campaign to stop the eviction plans, together with protecting Bedouin communities and encouraging their return to places from which they were evicted. This in turn depends upon a firm and resolute Palestinian decision accompanied by effective measures on the ground.

[1] Aliyan Al-Hindi, "Occupation Engineering: The Archives of the Israeli Government in 1967" (Ramallah: Palestinian Research Center, 2021), pp. 155-157.

For more details on the Allon Plan, see:

Issa Fadel Nazzal, "Israeli Settlement in Occupied Arab Territories" (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 2022), pp. 52-54.

[2] For more details on the "Deal of the Century," refer to the BBC article.

[3] Atef Daghlis, “Confronting the Invasion of the Occupation Army... What Does the Emergence of the ‘Jericho Brigade’ Mean in Aqaba Jaber Camp?” “Al Jazeera Net”.

[4] "The martyrdom of the young man Hamza Sowafteh by the bullets of the occupation near the Tiyasir checkpoint in Tubas," Watan News Agency, 3/11/2023.

[5] "The occupation claims to have foiled the smuggling of weapons in the Jordan Valley," Maan News Agency, 24/11/2023.

[6] Photographed by Rashid Adnan Abu Zbaida.

The first image shows the maintenance of the fence after openings were made on the side of smugglers, while the second image reveals the traces of sabotage to the fence from above.

[7] http://tinyurl.com/yv3w5uxt

[8] For more details, refer to:

Ahmad Heneiti, "Israel's War on the Bedouins of the West Bank," "7iber".

[9] "What does the declaration of a state of war mean in Israel?", "Al Jazeera Net".

[10] "Settler Violence = State Violence," B'Tselem.

[11] Waleed Habbas, "What is happening in Area C in the West Bank since the beginning of the war on Gaza?" (Madar Center, 13/11/2023).

[12] See reports from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission during the mentioned period.

[13] See: Ahmad Heneiti, previously mentioned source.

[14] Some of these gatherings were displaced before the seventh of October.

[15] Phone interview with lawyer Hassan Mleihat, President of the "Bidr Association for the Defense of Bedouin Rights," on November 30, 2023.

[16] Map prepared by Karam Naboot and B'Tselem on the forced displacement of isolated communities and families in Area C under the cover of war.

[17] Same source.