Following Israel’s invasion of Gaza, it’s open season in the West Bank too. Wadi al-Siq, a small Bedouin village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, now lies empty. Community leader Abdulrahman Kaabneh describes the violent assault that led to their 12 October 2023 expulsion as the culmination of repeated attacks since Israeli settlers built an illegal outpost nearby earlier that year.
A group of armed settlers and masked soldiers tied up the handful of men yet to flee the village, and beat them ‘without mercy’, Kaabneh says. The injured men were given an hour to leave or, the settlers warned, they’d be killed. With blood dripping from their faces, the Palestinians were forced to flee on foot, only allowed to take what they could carry.
