Damage settlers caused to a watermelon field in the Qa’un Plain. Photo: ‘Aref Daraghmeh, B’Tselem, 27 April 2025
On Thursday, 17 April 2025, in the early morning hours, farmers from the village of Bardalah arrived at their farmland in the Qa’un Plain, north of the village, and discovered that settlers had destroyed some of their watermelon, corn, and other crops, cut water lines, and damaged irrigation pipes in the fields.
As exposed by Kerem Navot, the lands of the Qa’un Plain, at the northeastern edge of the Jordan Valley, were seized by Israel from their Palestinian owners in the 1970s and handed over to Israeli farmers. Parts of these lands were later separated from the rest of the West Bank by the Separation Barrier.
Irrigation pipes cut by settlers in the Qa’un Plain. Photo: ‘Aref Daraghmeh, B’Tselem, 27 April 2025
About 20 Palestinian farmers continued to cultivate the section that remained accessible to them, which serves as a source of livelihood for some 300 people. However, around December 2024, settlers established an outpost about one kilometer northwest of Bardalah and roughly 300 meters from the villagers’ farmland in the Qa’un Plain. The settlers brought a herd of cattle to the outpost and have since routinely grazed them in the cultivated fields of the Palestinian farmers.
In April 2025, the settlers’ cattle consumed corn and cabbage in fields spanning more than 100 dunams (1 dunam = 0.1 hectares). The settlers also caused severe damage to about 80 dunams of watermelon by deliberately cutting and destroying fruits and disconnecting irrigation lines. They further damaged dozens of olive trees in the area and stole equipment from agricultural plots. The damage has worsened since, as residents are afraid to access their fields to tend to their crops, irrigate, harvest, or fertilize them.
Muhammad Suaftah, 49, a father of four from Bardalah, said in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher ‘Aref Daraghmeh on 27 April 2025:
Settlers bring the herd of cattle from the outpost to graze in our fields almost every day, and hardly a night goes by without settlers damaging our land and crops. Two months ago, settlers also attacked a shepherd grazing in the area and beat him. The worst part is that the military stands by the settlers, and we have no one to complain to or to ask for help.
People are afraid to go to that area or to their fields during the day, and even more so at night, because settlers roam around. Dozens of families have been affected—all extended families who make their living from agriculture. We are suffering huge losses from the destruction of our crops, but the settlers don’t care. They just want to drive us off our land. We’re desperate. We don’t know what to do to be able to go on living and make a decent living.
Cattle from the settlers’ outpost grazing on Palestinian farmers’ crops in the Qa’un Plain. Photo: ‘Aref Daraghmeh, B’Tselem, 27 April 2025
Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation is inextricably bound up in human rights violations. B’Tselem strives to end this regime, as that is the only way forward to a future in which human rights, democracy, liberty and equality are ensured to all people, both Palestinian and Israeli, living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, Israel has acted in a coordinated and deliberate manner to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip, committing genocide against its residents. In light of Israel’s actions in Gaza, the public statements made by Israeli decision-makers, and the international community’s failure to take effective action, there is a serious risk that the Israeli regime will expand the genocide to other areas under its control—first and foremost, the West Bank.
B’Tselem calls on the Israeli public and the international community to use every tool available under international law to bring an immediate end to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.
