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Ras ’Ein Al ’Auja community in Jericho governorate of the occupied West Bank is being forcibly displaced, with at least 20 families including 59 children already displaced. A pastoralist Bedouin and herding community, the approximately 100 families of Ras ’Ein Al ’Auja are seen as the longstanding guardians of the al Auja spring and land that forms the gateway to the northern Jordan Valley. The community is home to different social groups, living in separate neighborhoods, and includes a number of families recently forcibly displaced from the nearby communities of Mu’arrajat and Mughayir al Dir. Its expulsion has been a long-term goal of settlers’ intent on Palestinian erasure from Area C of the occupied West Bank.
In the first week of 2026, settlers began erecting new illegal outposts adjacent to residents’ homes, cutting these residents off from other families and intimidating the community. This same predatory practice was used by settlers to previously displace the community of Mu’arrajat, while Israeli military and police present did nothing to prevent it. Ras ’Ein Al ’Auja residents now face daily harassment by settlers, including through settler livestock grazing in residential areas, damage to electricity and water infrastructure, theft of livelihood assets, and threats to their physical safety and freedom of movement, with reports of a woman and a family physically attacked and multiple members detained and reportedly ill-treated. Community members further reported gender-based violence by settlers including harassment, and family separation and psychosocial distress. The rapid intensification of the coercive environment has caused the displacement of at least 20 households. Those that remain have barricaded themselves into their homes in fear of attack.
This forced displacement is currently ongoing, and urgent action is needed to stop the displacement of the remaining families and allow the safe return of those displaced back to their areas of residence. Multiple nearby herding and Bedouin communities have already been forcibly displaced under similar pressures, demonstrating a pattern of forcible transfer that now threatens Ras ’Ein Al ’Auja. The Protection Cluster is continuing to coordinate with partners to provide emergency protection services and calls for immediate action by Member States.
Member States are called upon to urgently:
- Join protection partners and provide immediate international diplomatic presence on the ground in the community to support the remaining families, deter attacks, provide visibility, and reduce the threat of their forced displacement.
- Engage in private advocacy to stop the risk of forcible transfer of the Ras ’Ein Al ’Auja community.
- Rapidly increase financial support to partners to enable scale-up of both proactive and remedial protection in Ras ’Ein Al ’Auja and other communities at high risk of forcible transfer.
- Advocate for the unimpeded and safe access for all humanitarian actors and protection partners to deliver essential and lifesaving services.