The New Year in the Jordan Valley brings with it a new round of harassment for Palestinians trying to maintain some semblance of life amongst the Israeli settlements and army presence that is rife in the Valley. Every hilltop is a hive of activity as tanks, personnel, and soldiers endlessly maneuver their weaponry and soldiers in overt displays of power. This show is used tirelessly to instill fear and destabilize the 64,000 Palestinian residents that are subject to all forms of abuse, aggression and efforts to remove them from their land.

The second of January witnessed approximately twenty families from Ras al-Ahmar and al-Malih being forcibly removed from their homes and left to sleep two hundred metres away, insight of their homes. The military order issued to them, stated that all livestock, and members of the community must leave their homes from 6pm to 2pm the ensuing day, leaving them to face a night outside without shelter while the army exercised military drills that included heavy and light weaponry in and amongst their communities. No one was exempt from the evacuation, meaning the old, sick and small children all were turned out to the cold. In Ras al-Ahmar, a five year old child from the Qasim family, was forced to leave his bed where he has been confined with a high fever and a hacking cough, to seek refuge away from his family and the prospect of a night outside, with his uncle in nearby Deir Yassir. This example illustrates just one story of struggle that the communities faced, as women with small babies also had to find ways of keeping their children safe and warm while military artillery was being fired all around. In Ras al-Hamra, children were curled up in the back of trucks and tractors as they had no other choice but to sleep under the light of the stars and the piercing lights of the overshadowing settlements of Maskiyot, Raoi and Bakout. As they slept, military vehicles constantly drove past on the road next to them. The juxtaposition of a cluster of possession-less, displaced and unarmed shepherds next to the highly refined, well funded Israeli army brought to life the surreal question of these operations ever being a security issue. The truth of the matter lies only in using ones eyes to see who has all the power while the Palestinians only weapon lies in staying put and not being broken through repetitive brutality, into leaving.

This order, the fourth of such kind in December alone, is becoming a routine technique exercised by the  Israeli military to weaken and reduce the strength of the individual inhabitants and the collective presence on the land. However, at the end of this round of military harassment, the Palestinians of the Jordan Valley will return to their homes and pick up the pieces of their lives and carry on.

After the military drills, remnants of the artillery used will be scattered throughout their communities, which can be fatal to anyone who comes into contact with it. Mines, for example, left over from military drills, have been known to blow up unexpectedly and seriously injure individuals. The cultivated fields and trees will also bear the brunt of being fired at, driven over and used as a live military firing zone. These crops are vital components of the Palestinians lives, without which they have no income and hence no way of subsiding. Hence, the aftermath of such exercises extol both a heavy emotional impact on the communities but also a very material one in the form of damaged crops and hence livelihood.

The Jordan Valley Solidarity Campaign did what they could in way of supporting the communities. Driving from misplaced community to misplaced community, they distributed a busload of fresh fruit and vegetables to the families. As well as sitting around smoldering fires with members of the communities and trying to be some form of concerned presence for them. Instead of just distributing goods and leaving, they tried to be a reassuring presence for a community that is much isolated from the rest of the West Bank and often much ignored by the world at large.