Israeli Settlers Intensified Attacks On Khirbet Yarza Shepherds, Forcing Families To Flee West Bank

In the occupied West Bank, Mukhlis Masa’id of Khirbet Yarza said settlers intensified attacks on his Jordan Valley community three years ago, destroying crops, attacking homes, and assaulting shepherds and farmers working grazing lands around the village.

Masa’id told Al Jazeera, “When they attack the shepherds, dozens of them gather to intimidate them,” adding that he said Palestinians had “no means of transportation to reach the shepherds and try to protect them.”

Al Jazeera

He said the violence drove 14 families, about 100 Palestinians in total, to gather surviving livestock and leave the village, with the campaign continuing until the community had fled their homes in March 2026.

Masa’id said settlers stole “hundreds of sheep and cattle,” and he described the aftermath as “We feel like we’ve lost a son.”

In Jifna north of Ramallah, Zuhair Abu Shaar told Al Jazeera that on April 15 a group of Israeli settlers stormed his livestock pen and returned half an hour later with 12 Israeli military vehicles in support, stealing 180 head of cattle and shooting one neighbour in the leg.

A separate report from شبكة فلسطين للأنباء described the Israeli occupation authorities reviving the settlement of Sanour in a ceremony last Sunday, attended by Yossi Dagan and Israeli ministers and officials including Defense Minister Katz and Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich.

It said 16 families participated in what they called the return of families to their homes in the settlement, which sits on the lands of the town of Sanour south of the city of Jenin and had been dismantled in Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan from Gaza and the northern West Bank in 2005.

Al Jazeera

The report quoted Finance Minister and Settlement Minister in the Defense Ministry Betzalel Smotrich saying, “We cancel the shame of expulsion and end the idea of a Palestinian state,” and it quoted a separate call from the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz’s attendance, “We must occupy the Gaza Strip and the camps in the center and establish military rule and settlements throughout the sector.”

It also said Defense Minister Israel Katz urged expanding Israel’s hold in the West Bank, boasting that the government would soon legalize about 140 outposts.

The same report framed the ceremony as part of a “creeping annexation series,” describing Sanour as one of four isolated outposts alongside Homesh, Ganim, and Kadim in Areas C after the Oslo Accords.

The National Office for the Defense of Land and Resistance to Settlement said in its regular report that the occupation government continues to operate “in the shadows away from the media,” and that West Bank governorates are witnessing an “extraordinary settlement fever” led by Bezalel Smotrich with full support from Benjamin Netanyahu.

The report said that on April 9 of this year the Security Cabinet secretly decided to establish 34 new settlements, adding them to 68 settlements decided since the settler government’s formation to bring the total to 102 settlements.

It also cited a warning from Israeli army chief of staff Eyal Zamir, saying he “warned that the Israeli army may collapse and be unable to carry out its duties” given the “heavy burden” of protecting many outposts spreading rapidly in the West Bank.

In the same reporting, Israeli forces on April 12 notified the seizure of about 8,950 square meters of village land in Fardanah south of Jenin for military purposes, with the land planted with olive trees.

In parallel, WAFA reported that Israeli colonists grazed their sheep on Thursday in the lands of Kisan village east of Bethlehem, damaging olive trees and, according to local sources, stealing sheep and harassing schoolchildren.