Demolitions and confiscations in communities facing expulsion

On Thursday, 6 March 2025, at around 9:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel, accompanied by soldiers and equipped with an excavator, arrived at the community of al-Burj in the northern Jordan Valley. The forces demolished two tents that housed a family of eight, including four minors, as well as a tent used as a kitchen and bathroom, solar panels, and two water tanks belonging to the same family. The residential tents had been erected after the Civil Administration demolished the family’s home on 25 November 2024.

From there, the forces continued to Khirbet Um al-Jamal, where they demolished a residential shack and a livestock enclosure that had been left empty after most of the community’s residents were expelled from their homes under settler threats on 12 August 2024.

On Monday, 18 Nov. 2024, around 9:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military escort and equipped with a digger at the community of Khirbet Um al-Jamal in the northern Jordan Valley and demolished the homes of five families totaling 30 people, including 17 minors. The families were forced to abandon their homes on 12 Aug. 2024 along with seven other families for fear of settler violence. All the structures were donated by the humanitarian organization ACF.

On Monday, 12 August 2024, a day after Palestinians shot and killed Yonatan Deutsch, an Israeli from Beit She’an, at the Mehola Junction in the Jordan Valley, settlers set up tents about one kilometer (0.6 miles) from the homes of Um al-Jamal, a community in the northern Jordan Valley. Since then, settlers have roamed among the homes, threatening to destroy them.

The community was home to 13 families – 78 people, 43 of them minors. Eight of these families, totaling 48 people, 23 of them minors, moved to Tubas in early July, planning to stay there through August, as they do every year during the hot summer months. This year, however, seven of the families decided not to return in September. They dismantled their tents on 17 August and left.

On 16 August, five other families, totaling 30 people, 20 of them minors, dismantled their tents and left.

As of 22 August, only one family remains on site – nine people, two of them minors, with five tents. Nine permanent structures, donated to the community by an aid organization, are also still standing.

On Wednesday, 17 January 2024, at around 4:00 P.M., Israeli soldiers arrived at the community of Um al-Jamal, in the northern Jordan Valley, detained a local resident in his car and then confiscated it claiming it had been taken into Firing Zone 900. The soldiers ordered the man to drive the car to a military base near the community of Kh. Samrah, where they held him for five hours.

On Thursday, 15 June 2023, at around 9:00 A.M., Civil Administration and Jordan Valley settlement regional council personnel arrived with a military escort and a bulldozer at the community of Khirbet Um al-Jamal in the northern Jordan Valley. The forces dismantled and confiscated four dwellings donated to the residents by a humanitarian organization, as well as sunshades belonging to four other families.  

On Friday, 2 June 2023, at around 11:00 A.M., agents of the Jordan Valley settlement regional council came to the community of Khirbet Um al-Jamal in the northern Jordan valley with a military escort and confiscated a car belonging to a resident of the village of Tayasir, claiming it had been brought into a closed military zone. The council personnel ordered the owner of the car to drive it to the nearby settlement of Maskiyyot and leave it there. 

On 22 May 2023, Civil Administration personnel arrived with a military escort at the community of Khirbet Um al-Jamal in the northern Jordan Valley and delivered demolition orders for the homes of seven families in the community.

On Tuesday, 27 Dec. 2022, at around 5:00 P.M., soldiers arrived in a military vehicle at a spot near the community of Khirbet Um al-Jamal, in the area of Hamamat al-Maleh in the northern Jordan Valley, and confiscated two tractors with towed water tankers. According to the soldiers, the drivers had filled up the tankers by illegally hooking up to Mekorot pipelines. The soldiers ordered the drivers to take the tractors into the settlement of Maskiyyot, and after they did so, arrested them. Meanwhile, more soldiers arrived, as well as police officers. They searched for the illegal connections and confiscated a private car, claiming it was in a closed military zone. The tractor drivers were released the next day, after posting NIS 2,000 (USD 566) each in bail.

On Sunday, 15 May 2022, at around 1:00 P.M., Jordan Valley Settlement Council employees arrived with a military escort to fields near the communities of Khirbet al-Malih and Khirbet Um al-Jamal while Palestinian farmers were harvesting their crops. The forces confiscated a harvesting machine used by the farmers and a vehicle belonging to one of the farmers for three hours to prevent them from continuing their work. The force then returned the harvesting machine to its owner but ordered the farmer whose vehicle had been confiscated to drive it to a military post near Khirbet Samrah.

On Sunday morning, 6 March 2022, the military again conducted infantry training in various parts of the Jordan Valley: south of Khirbet Um al-Jamal, in the a-Shakh area near the village of al-Farisiyah and next to Um al-Qiba near Hamamat al-Malih. During the training the soldiers trampled cultivated fields and fired live ammunition. The shepherds were forced to leave the herds in the pen and not go out to pasture.

On Tuesday, 8 March 2022, soldiers trained east of the community of Khirbet Makhul and expelled shepherds from the area on the pretext that it was a closed military zone.

Between 25 and 27 January 2022, the Israeli military conducted extensive training in Palestinian farmland in the Jordan Valley. During the training, tanks damaged about 30 dunams of wheat fields in the Khallet Ajmi’ah area, south of the village of al-‘Aqabah. The forces continued training until 27 January 2022.

On Tuesday, 1 February 2022, the troops resumed training, this time near the communities of Khirbet al-Malih, al-Burj and Khirbet Humsah al-Foqa. The troops put up tents and trailers in the area and stayed there until the next day, Wednesday, 22 February 2022. The training included infantry and vehicle training, including four bulldozers.

On Monday, 7 February 2022, dozens of soldiers in military vehicles and tanks arrived at the land of the villages of Um al-Jamal and al-Farisiyah, spread out in cultivated farmland and roamed among the residents’ homes.

That day, at around 10:00 A.M., Civil Administration personnel came with a military escort to Khirbet Ibzik and delivered orders to seven of the community’s families, numbering 45, including 23 minors, instructing them to vacate from their homes starting tomorrow, Tuesday, 8 February 2022. On each of the days, the families are required to evacuate from 8:00 A.M. until 1:00 A.M. the following day.