The village of Atouf in the northern Jordan Valley is being squeezed under an unrelenting campaign of land seizures and resource theft. Bulldozers and fences carve up farmland, while armed settlers, shielded by soldiers, roam freely, taking over pastures and cutting families off from the soil that has sustained them for generations.

Water, once abundant from local wells, has become another weapon of control. Deep drilling by settlers has drained aquifers, leaving Palestinian farmers with parched fields and livestock struggling to survive. Wells that once yielded hundreds of cubic metres a day now trickle out barely enough for basic needs, while surrounding settlements flourish with diverted supplies. What was once a landscape of fertile grazing grounds is being turned into military zones and closed-off estates where Palestinian presence is criminalised.

For farmers and shepherds, the impact is devastating. Land confiscations strip families of their only livelihood, while grazing bans and livestock seizures make survival untenable. Some herders now watch their sheep die in pens, unable to reach pastures. Others are forced to buy expensive fodder or transport water from neighbouring towns, piling debts on already desperate households. Daily life is further scarred by military drills, drone surveillance, home demolitions and settler attacks designed to drive residents away.

In the Jordan Valley, where tens of thousands of Palestinians live surrounded by settlements, the pattern is clear: dispossession is not accidental but systematic. Every confiscated field, every demolished home, and every dried-up well forms part of a slow suffocation meant to erase a people from their land. Yet despite the mounting losses, the villagers remain, holding onto their homes and livestock in defiance of a campaign that seeks to uproot them.