More than 280 Palestinian families have been driven from their homes in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of 2026, amid a surge in attacks by Israeli settlers targeting rural and Bedouin communities. Many of those displaced come from villages and encampments across the northern Jordan Valley, where residents say daily life has become increasingly untenable under persistent intimidation and destruction.

Local rights monitors report that settlers have carried out repeated raids on communities in the area, destroying property, stealing livestock and setting fire to homes and shelters. Families living in vulnerable Bedouin encampments have faced particular pressure, with armed groups frequently entering villages under the protection of Israeli occupation forces. The sustained violence has left residents with little choice but to abandon their land, fearing further harm to their families and livelihoods.

According to human rights organisations working in the region, around 1,700 people have been displaced in the first months of the year alone. Entire communities from areas including Shallal al-Auja, Tel al-Samadi, al-Burj, Khirbet Yarza, al-Hamiyah and al-Maita have been forced to relocate after repeated attacks destroyed homes, grazing infrastructure and herds that many families depend on for survival.

Humanitarian data indicates that the forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank has accelerated steadily in recent years. Since January 2023, hundreds of families have been pushed out of nearly one hundred rural communities, largely due to settler violence and restrictions preventing access to farmland and grazing areas. For many residents of the Jordan Valley, these pressures have transformed once-stable villages into places where remaining has become nearly impossible.

The situation has grown more volatile following Israeli government decisions aimed at restructuring land administration across the West Bank, measures widely viewed as advancing long-term annexation plans. Palestinian monitoring groups say nearly two thousand attacks by Israeli forces and settlers were recorded in February alone, with a significant proportion concentrated in the Hebron governorate and surrounding rural areas.

By the end of 2024, Israeli settler numbers in the West Bank had risen to an estimated 770,000, spread across more than 180 settlements and hundreds of smaller outposts. As settlement expansion continues, Palestinian communities in remote areas warn that the intensifying genocidal war is steadily pushing them off their land.