Khirbet Abu Falah, Ramallah District: Israeli settlers broke into a Palestinian farm and stole dozens of sheep

A.H., 30, a resident of Abu Falah, his father and brother are sheep farmers. Their pen is located on village farmland in an area known as Marj Si’a, which lies between Khirbet Abu Falah and the neighboring village al-Mughayir. The area has been attacked by settlers numerous times, and in 2024, the outpost Or Naḥman was established there. Both the farmland and the outpost are located in territory defined in the Oslo Accords as Area B.

On the night between Sunday and Monday, 13 April 2026, at around 2:50 A.M., A.H. was watching the feed from the security cameras installed in the pen and saw that some of his sheep were outside it. He rushed there together with several relatives, and then saw several settlers loading his sheep onto vehicles on the road leading to the outpost Or Naḥman and to another outpost north of the area, Magen Binyamin, in the Turmusaya Valley.

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When he later checked the security camera footage, he saw a settler entering the pen. The cameras were then cut off for about half an hour before going back online.

That night, settlers stole 71 sheep from the pen.

A.H., 30, a father of three, related in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Mohammad Romaneh:

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I am married and have two daughters and a son. My father has a sheep farm in the eastern part of the land of the village Abu Falah, in an area called Marj Si’a, in territory defined as Area B in the Oslo Accords. The farm includes two sheep pens, made of metal sheets, concrete and bricks, one measuring 500 square meters and the other 250 square meters. We kept about 80 animals on the farm.

A few days after the events of 7 October 2023, settlers set up a shepherding outpost northeast of our farm, in an area called a-Daharat, on land belonging to residents of the village Turmusaya, also in Area B. Since then, the settlers began attacking the Marj Si’a area. Sometimes they attack farmers, sometimes they cut down olive trees, and sometimes they attack vehicles on the road leading to the village al-Mughayir. They’ve often vandalized agricultural structures, set them on fire and attacked shepherds grazing their flocks in the area. For example, on 6 May 2025, settlers attacked the area and managed to burn several agricultural structures near our farm. That day, they also came to our farm for the first time, vandalized security cameras and water pipes, and burned simple furniture that was outside the farm fence.

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These attacks forced us to stop staying overnight on the farm and to make do with monitoring it via security cameras we installed in several spots. We’re usually at the farm from early morning to tend to the flock, leave shortly after midnight and then continue to monitor it through the cameras.

On Monday, 13 April 2026, at around 2:50 A.M., I checked the live security camera feed on my phone and was surprised to see two or three sheep outside the pen, even though we had brought the entire flock in and closed the doors before we left.

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I went out to the farm with my father right away, and when we arrived, we found the pen completely empty, with only two sheep left on the farm grounds. On inspection, we found that the iron chain locking the farm gate had been cut, and so had the fence separating the two pens. We understood that these were most likely settlers, especially because it’s dangerous for Palestinians to go there at night. We began looking for the flock in the area.

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I followed the animal droppings, which led toward the fields deeper in Marj Si’a. When I got there, I saw at least two vehicles standing on the road that connects Turmusaya to Marj Si’a, a road that settlers have closed off since the outpost was established. I saw several settlers loading sheep onto trailers hitched to the vehicles. I approached, but the vehicles drove off quickly toward Turmusaya. During the search, I found one of our sheep there and brought it back to the farm on foot.

When we returned to the farm, we realized that 71 sheep had been stolen from us, including lambs, each worth between 2,500 ILS (~ 834 USD) and 3,000 ILS (~ 1,000 USD). When we tried to watch the security camera recordings, we discovered that they stopped working at 2:23 A.M., just after one of the settlers was seen inside one of the pens, and then resumed at 2:50 A.M.

The farm belongs to my father and another farmer, and my father, my married brother and I work there. It’s the main source of income for four families.

Now we don’t know whether to buy new sheep, because we’re afraid they’ll be stolen again, and we have no way to defend ourselves against settler attacks, which take place under the protection of occupation soldiers and sometimes right before their eyes.