A man holds a sheep by the leash while sitting in a vehicle at a Friday livestock market in Hebron in the occupied West Bank on 14 June 2024. [Getty]
Last Friday morning, Khaled Burqan woke up to feed his sheep. But as he approached them, he found many of them had died after Israeli settlers poisoned the water they were drinking from.
This incident is neither unique nor new, but rather part of an integrated war waged by Israel through its army and illegal settlers against Palestinian livestock in the occupied West Bank.
In recent months, Israeli attacks against livestock and Palestinian sheep herders have escalated in several areas of the occupied West Bank, most of which targeted ‘Area C’ and the lands subject to seizure in the vicinity of what is locally known as “the apartheid wall” and illegal Israeli settlements.
According to observers in the occupied West Bank, Israel knows the pastoral nature of the Palestinian residents, so it targets this in the hope that it will cause them to be displaced and abandon their lands.
Theft and killing by Israeli settlers
On Thursday evening, Burqan and his brothers were forced to leave their homes in the Berin area, east of Hebron, to be in the hospital with their sick father.
During their absence, a group of Israeli settlers infiltrated the sheep pen, which contains hundreds of sheep, and poisoned the drinking water.
Khaled told The New Arab that when he returned the next morning to inspect the sheep, he found 20 of them dead and a number of others in a critical condition, noting that this was not the first time that Israeli settlers had targeted their livestock.
“They prevented us from grazing in vast areas around us, which we relied on for raising livestock. Anyone who goes there risks being shot or arrested,” he added to TNA.
Repeated attacks are carried out by Israeli settlers under the protection of the Israeli army. The attacks include acts such as beating residents, throwing stones at Palestinians homes, and trying to cut off their water and electricity lines to force Palestinian residents to leave.
More than 40 Palestinian families live in the Berin area, which Israel seeks to forcibly empty to annex it to the nearby illegal Kiryat Hefer settlement, while the Israeli settlers graze their livestock on its lands as a means of seizing it.
In dozens of areas in the occupied West Bank, grazing has become an arduous task for Palestinians, as Israeli settlers deliberately target shepherds and their livestock in order to prevent them from reaching large areas of land and thus seizing it.
70 pastoral outpostsÂ
Within one week, fanatical Israeli settlers stole more than a thousand heads of sheep, and killed some of them, east of Ramallah. The Israeli settlers also attacked shepherds in several areas north and south of the occupied West Bank and forcibly brought their livestock into the area.
At the same time, Israeli settlers are racing against the clock to expand and establish pastoral settlement outposts throughout the occupied West Bank, with endless support from the right-wing Israeli government.
According to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, more than 70 pastoral Israeli settlement outposts were established by settlers on the lands of the occupied West Bank, especially the eastern ones.
Amir Daoud, Director General of Publishing and Documentation at the Commission, told TNAÂ that there are two paths to seizing Palestinian lands under the title of pastoral settlement: the official path, which takes place through the Israeli army;Â and the unofficial path, which takes place through settlers with continuous support from the far-right fundamentalist Israeli government.
The goal of establishing these Israeli outposts is primarily to connect the illegal Israeli settlements together, isolate the Palestinian towns from each other, separate the Palestinian population from natural resources, and forcibly displace and restrict Palestinians, in addition to creating illegal settlement enclaves to besiege the Palestinian communities and control the natural resources, especially in the eastern slopes of the occupied West Bank.
“The pastoral and agricultural settlement outposts extend over an area of ​​270 square kilometres and represent 8 percent of the ‘Area C’. Examples of these include six outposts located east of Tubas that control 49 square kilometres of land,” Daoud said.
Hebron is considered the highest in the number of agricultural and pastoral settlement outposts, with 20 outposts, followed by 17 in Ramallah, 13 in Nablus, 8 in Bethlehem, 6 in Tubas, 5 in Salfit, 4 in Jericho, 2 in Tulkarm, and one in Jenin.
Establishing pastoral outposts means depriving Palestinians of pastures and forcing them to graze their livestock only around their homes, as food sources are often not available for them, forcing them in many cases to sell them to get rid of this burden, which constitutes the first step in the displacement plan.
“Removing the pastoral nature of the Palestinians and forcing them to abandon their livestock is considered the most dangerous thing that is happening in the West Bank because they depend on them mainly for their livelihood, which means their presence on their land,” he said.
