Israeli settlers are driving Palestinian shepherds from their grazing lands

Fourteen families, about 100 Palestinians in total, called this region home until increasing violent settler activity forced them to consider their future here. Early this year, locals decided they had had enough with the near-daily settler attacks, so they gathered their surviving livestock and left the village.

This sustained targeting of agriculture in the area – on which almost the entire community relies – appears to be part of an organised and systematic campaign of intimidation by settlers, intended to drive whole Palestinian farming communities from their land.

“The settlers have many means of communication among themselves. When they attack the shepherds, dozens of them gather to intimidate them. Meanwhile, we have no means of transportation to reach the shepherds and try to protect them. Our roads are also rough and unpaved, unlike the roads used by the settlers,” Masa’id told Al Jazeera.

The settlers didn’t stop there; they stole hundreds of sheep and cattle, the lifeblood of this northern West Bank community.

“We feel like we’ve lost a son. What happened to us is the worst thing that could ever happen – to leave the homes we’ve lived in all our lives, homes we hoped our children and grandchildren would live in too,” he told us.