Israeli forces have sealed off Ras al-Ahmar, a Bedouin community in the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley, for more than two weeks, cutting residents off from water, animal feed and health care, Al Jazeera reported on Friday.
Access to the community has been blocked since mid-September, while the army builds a barrier through Palestinian land in the area: a road for military patrols, trenches and embankments.
Saeed Ayed, a resident who keeps a livestock herd in Ras al-Ahmar, has watched over his animals as they go hungry and thirsty under the siege, Al Jazeera reported. With vehicles unable to reach the community, residents have carried goods in by night on donkeys, out of sight of Israeli soldiers and settlers, according to the network, whose photographer Moath Ghannam documented the scene.
The barrier is being built west of the village, effectively trapping it and splitting the Jordan Valley off from the Mount Tammun area, +972 Magazine reported. The Turkish news agency Anadolu reported that the closure of the last access route to the village isolated 47 Palestinian families.
The Jordan Valley is among the most restricted parts of the West Bank. The Israeli rights group B’Tselem has found that Israel draws on the valley’s natural resources more than on the rest of the territory while keeping Palestinians from using most of the area.
The restrictions come less than four weeks before Israel’s parliamentary election on Oct. 27, for which the Knesset dissolved on July 17 after completing the first full four-year term by an Israeli legislature since 1988. The vote follows months of settlement pressure across the West Bank, from settlers taking over springs to a widening network of checkpoints and roadblocks.