On Thursday 1st October 2026 the occupation courts held a hearing to extend the detention of two Palestinian shepherds from the Jordan Valley, Yousef Bisharat and Hilal Daraghmeh.

Yousef was picked up by settler security on Thursday 24th September after he went to the aid of his 16 year old son who was being harassed by Israeli settlers while grazing the family’s sheep near their farm in Khirbet Makhoul, northern Jordan Valley. The Israeli army kept him in detention at the behest of these “illegal” Israeli settlers, are on Palestinian land illegally, according to both international law and even the laws of the occupying power, but have the full backing of the Israeli state and cooperation with the army. Having spent a week in detention the court ordered his release on payment of 1000 shekels.

Hilal Daraghmeh, from Ein el Hilwe, was kidnapped by the IOF on Friday 25th September. He was held at Tayasir checkpoint for several hours, blindfolded and with his hands a feet bound, before being taken away and held in detention. The court hearing on Thursday 1st October 2026 determined that Hilal be held under administrative detention, leaving him in the Kafkaesque apartheid court system where he can be held indefinitely without trial or evidence.

According to local activists “the Israeli army is demanding that they be placed under administrative detention for refusing to be evicted and for insisting on continuing to graze their livestock on the pastures”

Fourty-nine year old Yousef Bisharat is a shepherd and father of 10 from the north Jordan Valley in occupied Palestine. Despite facing constant violence from settlers and the army, Yousef has declared he will remain steadfast on his land in the face of a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out by Israeli state-backed settler gangs in the West Bank.

It has not been easy. Six months ago, his teenage son Hussein was abducted by the occupation forces and has been kept in ‘administrative detention’ without charge or trial. Last week, Yousef himself was abducted by “settler security” and handed over to the army.

This is not the first time Yousef or his sons or men from the family have been harassed by being ‘detained’ by occupation forces or settlers.

October, 2025: One of many instances in which Israeli occupation forces kidnapped, blindfolded, and tortured men from Yousef’s family. After turning his mobile on, Yousef found that the Israeli occupation forces had taken this photo of him.

Read more about Hussein Bisharat, Yousef’s 18-year old son, who has been abducted by the occupation army for six-months here: https://palsolidarity.org/2026/06/18-year-old-palestinian-shepherd-hussein-bsharat-abducted-by-occupation-forces/