Three years of the West Bank’s ‘third Nakba’

Rammun, occupied West Bank – Fresh off the seventh forced displacement of his central West Bank Bedouin community since 1948, Abu Najjeh was not in a contemplative mood leading up to Nakba Day. He said he was in a rush, too busy reacting to the crises of the day – the continuing “third Nakba”, as he called it. “This is not a proper place to live – that’s why I’m in a hurry … waiting for a car to take me,” said Abu Najjeh, the mukhtar, or leader, of the former Bedouin community of Ein Samiya, speaking from a recently erected tent in the outskirts of Rammun before rushing to find his sons amid unfolding violence in Jiljilyya. Recommended Stories list of 3 items end of list Just that morning, Jewish settlers had stolen hundreds of sheep and two tractors from a member of his extended family in Jiljilyya, to the north of Rammun, as well as shooting and killing 16-year-old Yousef Kaabneh – also from Abu Najjeh’s Kaabneh clan. Like the community of Ein Samiya, Yousef and his family had been forcibly displaced from Wadi as-Seeq in 2023, one of dozens of Palestinian Bedouin communities emptied since October 7, 2023. Already ascendant, the Israeli far right has used the Hamas-led attack on Israel, along with the cover of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, to ramp up attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank and seize more land. …