Israeli settlers carry out frequent attacks on Palestinians in the Jordan Valley [Getty]
47 Palestinian families in the Jordan Valley area of the occupied West Bank are living under siege and without water, following the construction of a new settlement road.
They are facing extremely difficult conditions that seem to be meant to pressure them into leaving their homes and lands.
At the far eastern edge of the village of Atouf in the northern Jordan Valley, 70-year-old Lutfi Saeed Jabr and the families of his four sons are living under a blockade imposed by Israeli occupation forces and settlers.
They have received no water for six days.
Jabr told The New Arab that around 20 families in the northern Jordan Valley have been cut off from Atouf village following the construction of a concrete wall and iron gates, while another 27 families living about three kilometres away are experiencing similar conditions.
Residents see this as an attempt to force all 47 families – more than 300 people in total – to leave.
Jabr fears that if he leaves his home to obtain water or food for around 30 members of his family, he may not be able to return. He told The New Arab that he owns around 700 sheep, as well as greenhouses growing vegetables, wheat and barley.
His family depends on agricultural products which they grow themselves for their livelihood. For him, therefore, cutting off the water means “certain death or displacement,” which he vows not to accept.
He explained that his land lies in Area C, which covers over 60% of the West Bank, and is under full Israeli political and security control under the 1993 Oslo Accords.
He has documents proving ownership of the land, inherited from his father and grandparents.
Settler incursions
However, he says the area is subjected to nightly incursions by armed settlers, who enter homes, threaten residents with burning of their homes and expulsion, and damage water pipes and block roads.
Farmer Abdullah Bani Odeh, one of the Palestinians threatened with expulsion, describes what is happening as a direct attack on the residents’ basic needs.
“The land is our only source of income. Taking parts of it away reduces our ability to farm and raise livestock. What is happening is not simply land being taken from us; it is our lives being taken from us.”
Bani Odeh describes the condition of the grazing land as a result of the Israeli blockade and incursions as “catastrophic.”
He says that Israeli authorities prevent residents from fully accessing their land, surround them and stop them from grazing livestock in areas their families have used for decades. This makes it difficult to provide food for their animals and ultimately leads to livestock losses.
A new separation barrier
Abdullah Basharat, head of the Atouf village council, says, “The repeated attacks on the water infrastructure, culminating in cutting off water supplies to families, are aimed at expelling the few remaining Palestinian communities in the area, alongside excavation work to construct the separation barrier known as the ‘Crimson Thread’ in the northern Jordan Valley.”
According to Basharat, the route of the barrier – which the Israeli army announced about a year ago – extends for approximately 22 kilometres, from the Ein Shibli area to the Tayasir checkpoint in the north.
It passes through the lands of Khirbet Atouf, Ras al-Ahmar and other communities, cutting through agricultural land owned by Palestinians from Tubas, Tammun, Atouf and other areas. The route includes orchards, greenhouses, wells and water networks.
Basharat expects the barrier to isolate Palestinians from their land and enable the seizure of approximately 50,000 dunams of territory.
Since digging work to construct the barrier began in March 2026, Basharat says the area has suffered extensive damage, including the uprooting of hundreds of trees, destruction of crops and greenhouses, demolition of kilometres of water and irrigation pipelines, and damage to agricultural land on which dozens of Palestinians depend.
He added that Israeli authorities began by destroying the main water pipelines and then filled in three functioning artesian wells without prior notification.
He describes the destruction of the wells as “a knockout blow to irrigated agriculture in the plain,” because it cut off water to around 4,500 dunams planted with grapes, olives and bananas.
Basharat warns that recent confiscation orders, together with plans to demolish a number of structures, will turn the area into “a genuinely barren place” and force families to leave under the pressure of poverty and targeting.
He says areas of the Jordan Valley surrounding Atouf, al-Baqi’a and the communities near Tubas have, in recent years, been turned into agricultural reserves for settlers, in addition to large areas converted into private grazing land for settlers and their livestock.