LONDON: Israeli forces detained several pro-Palestine activists with foreign nationalities north of Jericho in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday evening.
The Al-Baidar Organization for Defense of Bedouin Rights reported that activists were arrested while intervening on behalf of Palestinian residents of Al-Auja Spring village to protect the nomadic community’s cattle from an attack by Israeli settlers.
The settlers entered the village on Wednesday and released the cattle among the homes and cultivated land, sabotaging the community’s source of livelihood, the Al-Baidar human rights group said.
The Arab Al-Mlaihat clan living in the Jordan Valley relies on livestock for their income. Al-Baidar said that repeated settler attacks on this nomadic community aim to force them to leave the area.
The clan originally comes from the desert area of the Negev in Israel. However, due to political events and armed conflicts since 1948, the residents of Arab Al-Mlaihat were forced to live in different parts of the West Bank.
Dozens of Palestinian bedouin communities live in the Jordan Valley, an area that Israel has declared 45.7 percent of its northern part as military firing zones.
About 1 million Israeli settlers live in illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in violation of international law. Their violence against Palestinians has escalated since 2023, prompting Western governments to sanction some of their leaders; however, Israeli authorities rarely prosecute their actions.
