On Thursday, 3 July 2025, the last 15 families remaining in the Badu al-Mu’arajat East (Mleihat) community left their homes. The families numbered 101 people, including about 50 minors. The community, located northeast of Jericho, once included around 65 families – approximately 600 people in total – from the extended Mleihat family of the Ka’abneh tribe, who made a living from sheep herding and grazing. In recent years, many residents left, and by October 2023, at the start of the war in Gaza, only 36 families remained in the community, comprising 228 people, about half of them children.
The departure of the community was prompted in part by the establishment of settler outposts in the area, settler violence, and the blocking of access to grazing land by settlers, as well as personal reasons. In the past, residents would spend the winter in the al-Mu’arajat area and move in summer to areas with more favorable weather and grazing conditions, including the community of Maghayer a-Deir, whose residents were forcibly displaced by settler violence in May 2025. Over the years, as military restrictions increased and settler violence escalated, residents stopped migrating and remained in the area year-round.
In 2021, settlers led by Zohar Sabah –on whom international sanctions have been imposed – established the “Havat Zohar Sabah” outpost near the community and began harassing its residents. Settlers from the outpost routinely harassed the community, restricted access to grazing land, repeatedly stole sheep, and frequently assaulted residents.
In June 2023, settlers established another outpost, “Havat Netzah Harel,” about one kilometer southwest of the community. Settlers from the outpost herded their flocks between the residents’ homes and sometimes fed them from the residents’ fodder. As a result, about ten families left the community in search of a safer location.
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, settlers have blocked residents’ access to the remaining grazing areas, and harassment and attacks have intensified. In response, the remaining families began to leave the community gradually.
On the night of Wednesday, 2 July 2025, settlers from Havat Zohar Sabah began building another outpost just dozens of m
eters from the community’s school and homes. The settlers remained at the site, most of the time accompanied by soldiers. The next day, the family living closest to the new outpost left the community. That night, settlers forcibly took over another family’s home, expelled them, vandalized the contents of the house and other property, threw stones at activists who were present, stole dozens of sheep from another family, and led them toward the outpost.
The establishment of the outpost near the community and the takeover of the home were the final blow. After years of harassment, threats, and assaults by settlers, home demolitions, and property confiscation by Israeli authorities, the residents were forced to give in to the pressure and leave the area they had lived in for decades. That night, they loaded their flocks onto trucks and moved them to safety. The next day, they began dismantling their homes and moving their belongings. During the departure, settlers broke into the community’s school, vandalized and stole a lot of equipment, and spray-painted Stars of David on the doors.
After all the residents had left, the settlers dismantled the outpost near the homes and left the area as well.
