(MENAFN- Jordan Times) From the lot that Edais and 50 of his relatives have lived on since 1976, near the Jordanian border, the farmer can see the nearby settlement of Masua and an Israeli army base.
Before the Israeli seizure order had even taken effect, he said settlers captured his sheep, claiming the animals had entered an off-limits area.
To retrieve them, his family was made to pay 150,000 shekels (about $39,500) to the Jordan Valley Regional Council, an administrative body of about two dozen settlements including Masua.
Rights groups have decried the increasing use of similar tactics that encourage Palestinian displacement from lands coveted by settlers.
The Israeli defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, COGAT, and the office in charge of state lands, did not respond to repeated requests by AFP for comment.
Hamad Audi, a 55-year-old construction worker who lives in Jiftlik, told AFP that what had happened to Edais came as no surprise.
“The law is in the hands of the settlers, and the state [Israel]stands with them,” Audi said.
According to him, many houses in the village have been handed demolition notices by Israeli authorities and one already demolished.
In March, 206 dunams bordering Jiftlik were declared as a state-owned archaeological site and placed under the authority of the Jordan Valley settlement council.
The area - a rocky mound where a former British Mandate-era prison and an Ottoman-era building stand - is now inaccessible to Palestinians living right next to it.
Displacement fears
Some 490,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank alongside three million Palestinians.
While settlements have consistently expanded under successive Israeli administrations,“in the last year we've seen a lot of developments”, said Yonatan Mizrahi, director of settlement watch for Peace Now.
Israel's government, formed less than a year before the Gaza war broke out, includes extreme-right parties which support settlement expansion and politicians who call for the annexation of the West Bank.
To Audi, Palestinian life in the area is in danger.
“I expect that the population of the entire Jordan Valley area will be displaced,” he said.
According to Mizrahi, many Israelis believe that“the Jordan Valley should be in Israeli hands no matter what” due to its geographical location as a buffer zone between the West Bank and Jordan - with which Israel has signed a peace deal in 1994.
Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley, many of them farm-based,“have very little power”, Mizarhi added.
Beyond land seizures, he said some of the recent government decisions concerning the West Bank include the expansion of the Jordan Valley Regional Council's jurisdiction and increased funding for settlements.
And unauthorised settler outposts, which are technically illegal not only under international law but under Israeli law too, have increasingly been given official approval.
Edais, the herder, said he believes that Israel has used the Gaza war to accelerate its land grabs in the West Bank.
“They found... an excuse to expel people,” he said,“but here, there is no war! The war in Gaza is 200 kilometres away from us”.
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