Mouarrajat, a hamlet in the West Bank where 75 Bedouin families had raised their sheep for decades, is now nothing more than a ghost town. On Sunday, July 20, at the foot of a barren mountain in the Jordan Valley, the harsh sunlight illuminated empty animal pens, abandoned houses and a silent and battered mosque. "The settlers burned it down," said Souleiman Mleihat, 34, gazing at the place his family had lived for 45 years, from a hill 7 kilometers away. Like 25 other families who stayed until the last moment, the community leader was forced to leave on July 3.

Early that morning, after weeks of daily confrontations, around 50 "hilltop youth" – extremist and violent Jewish settlers, some armed with M-16 assault rifles – entered the village. According to Mleihat, the assailants "ran over" several sheep with their all-terrain vehicles and stole about 60 animals. To humiliate the locals, some settlers urinated at the entrance to Bedouin homes and ordered residents to leave or be "killed."

The last holdouts chose to leave, taking only identity documents, a bit of cash and a few easily transportable pieces of furniture. Since then, no one has been able to return to recover the rest of their belongings. Those who tried were met with gunfire from settlers stationed on the hills and inside the village.

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