Khirbet Samrah, the Jordan Valley: Israeli settlers have forcibly displaced 12 out of 16 families since October 2023

On Sunday, 22 June 2025, settlers from an outpost near Khirbet Samrah came to the residential compounds of the Abu ‘Awad family in the community and threatened the residents that unless they left within eight days, a new “outpost point” would be established right next to their homes – just as settlers did near the residential compound of the Abu ‘Aram family at the end of February, forcing the family to leave.

The next day, a Border Police officer arrived at the compounds and told them they had to leave within seven days. Throughout the following week, a settler known to the residents arrived and threatened to fence off the compounds, trapping the families inside, unless they left. After these threats, coming upon months of harassment, settler incursions, blocked access to pasture and threats from both area settlers and official authorities, the families left by 1 July, fearing for their lives and their flocks.

This was the third wave of expulsion in Khirbet Samrah, which until 7 October 2023 was home to 16 families, numbering 112 people, including 42 minors

On 13 October 2023, two families, numbering 10 people, including five minors, left the community. That afternoon, three settlers, two of them carrying wooden clubs and one armed with a gun, arrived at the community, attacked the families, and threatened to kill them if they did not leave. The settlers then called in the military, which arrested three men from the family. While the men were in custody, an employee of the regional council arrived in a “joint patrol” vehicle and ordered everyone out of the house immediately, not allowing them to take anything. The men were released at 8:00 P.M., after being told there had been no grounds for their arrest, but the families did not return to their homes out of fear the settlers would carry out their threats. They began packing their belongings the following morning and moved to the Hamamat al-Maleh area on 15 October 2023.

On 26 February 2025, an extended family of 33 people, including 18 minors, left the community after months of harassment and repeated invasions into the family’s compounds, and after settlers established a new outpost right next to their homes.

Image

Today, only four families remain in the community. The remaining residents, 32 people, including eight minors, live on their privately owned land and continue to suffer incessant harassment by settlers, including daily incursions into the community on ATVs, planting of flags in their residential compounds, the building of a fence that blocked the community’s access to their private land, and attempts to steal livestock.

‘Abed Abu ‘Awad, 50, father of six and a resident of the community, said in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher ‘Aref Daraghmeh on 29 June 2025:

We make a living raising sheep. Life here is hard. In the summer, it’s scorching hot; in the winter, it’s muddy and cold, but this is our land. We suffer greatly under the occupation. The settlers surround us on all sides with outposts, and they bring in their cows and sheep, taking over all the pastureland that was ours. They planted dozens of Israeli flags in front of our tents and forbid us, and even our flocks, from approaching them. If one of those flags they stuck everywhere falls down, even because of the wind or because a sheep brushed against it, they go berserk and blame us.

At the end of February, settlers built a structure very close to the tents of the extended Abu ‘Aram family, and they began suffering constant shouting, threats, invasions and honking until they were forced to leave. Since then, settlers from that outpost have been hanging around our tents too, every day, sometimes on ATVs, sometimes in a car. A week ago, they came and threatened us, saying we had eight days to leave, or they would establish another outpost, this time right next to our tents, and they wouldn’t let us or our flocks leave the house.

Image

Now we’re taking down our tents and crying, but we have no choice. The fear that one day they’ll enter the community and kill us simply never leaves us. We live here on private land we hold under an agreement with families from Tubas, but the settlers don’t care. They want all the land.

We’ve never had days as black as this past year. We are crushed by what’s happening here. We raised our children here, lived hard lives, but persevered. Now, with a heavy heart, I say we are leaving out of fear. We were made to leave by threats and force.