Source: Amnesty International –
Since the current Israeli government took office in December 2022, the authorities have intensified their policies aimed at displacing Palestinians in parts of the occupied West Bank known as Area C which is under Israeli control. These efforts have surged following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023 and Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
In the Northern Jordan Valley, these policies—coupled with escalating settler violence—have displaced dozens of Palestinian communities and threaten hundreds more. Here Palestinian farmer Rasheed Khudeiri, an activist with the Jordan Valley Solidarity Campaign, describes residents’ daily struggle to remain on their land, the impact on their family and livelihood, and their unwavering resilience in the face of systemic efforts to uproot them.
–
I have lived in Bardala since 1982. Bardala, like other nearby Palestinian communities, has always been a village with a strong community spirit. In 1965, after the Israeli water company Mekorot drilled several wells nearby across the line separating Israel from the Occupied Palestinian Territory. They drained the natural water springs we depended on, so local residents met and decided to dig an artesian well. The village could not afford to pay for workers, so everyone chipped in – some did the digging, others fed the workers or offered them a place to stay, and so on. It was a beautiful example of collective effort and the well revived our agriculture. However, in 1973, six years after the Israel occupied the territory, Mekorot took over the village’s well and made an agreement to sell water to the village residents while discounting the expenses of pumping the water.
Things changed further in 1993, when the water company dug three new wells inside Bardala but did not provide water to cover the village residents’ needs. As a farmers’ village, we find it hard to sustain our agriculture without access to water. Israel controls the water, supplying it to settlements abundantly, and preventing it from being supplied to Palestinian communities. Only last month, I lost 10,000 kilos of muloukhiyya (jute) crops. The water supply was cut off, and I couldn’t water my plants. Not only are our plants thirsty, so are we. It is a clear policy of discrimination.