Israeli Policies and Settler Violence Are Driving Palestinians from the Jordan Valley by Issam Ahmad

Israel has spent decades consolidating its hold on the land by imposing policies that drive Palestinian families, who have lived there for generations, off of it. Through a combination of tactics deployed across the occupied West Bank—including bureaucratic restrictions, denial of access to resources, and settlement expansion—Israel has worked to redraw the geographic and demographic makeup of the Jordan Valley by making living conditions nearly impossible for Palestinian residents.

Since October 7, 2023, these policies have all ramped up. While the world’s attention has focused on Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and, to a lesser extent, on the military campaign in West Bank towns like Jenin and Tulkarem—where entire refugee camps have been destroyed and tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced—the increasingly harsh plight of communities in the Jordan Valley has largely gone unnoticed.