On August 9, 2024, Israeli settlers from the Alon settlement established an outpost above the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar in the area of the Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate that lies outside the Israeli municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. Since then, the settlers have consistently harassed villagers—grazing on their land and preventing access to schools.

“The settlers throw stones at the children when they walk in the morning to school,” Eid Abu Khamis Jahalin, Khan al-Ahmar resident and community leader, told Jerusalem Story.1 Consequently, students must now take a detour every day to reach their school safely.

According to Jahalin, settlers frequently drive through the village, break into villagers’ homes, graze their livestock on Khan al-Ahmar’s land, and let their animals eat from the village’s troughs.

Jahalin explained that the settlers are expanding their presence and further developing the land—erecting more structures and connecting to Khan al-Ahmar’s water system.

“They’ve brought a bulldozer in and flattened the land for caravans,” Jahalin said.2 “[One settler] put a metal bar in the ground, so he’s working to get a water line from where that main distribution point is [in Khan al-Ahmar] to him.”

The settlers claim that Israel’s Civil Administration, the military unit that oversees the West Bank, granted them the land, but Jahalin says the military denied this when he questioned them. The Civil Administration did not respond to Jerusalem Story’s request to verify the information.

Since the 1990s, when the Israeli military issued eviction orders to the community to expand the nearby Israeli settlement of Ma‘ale Adumim (which is now a city),3 Israeli authorities have targeted the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar for demolition. The state expelled approximately 150 families from Khan al-Ahmar between 1997 and 1998 and ordered them to move to a landfill in the West Bank village of Abu Dis near Jerusalem.4

Israel argues that Khan al-Ahmar is located on state land. However, the land is actually owned by Palestinians in the town of ‘Anata, just east of the Jerusalem municipal boundary, and Khan al-Ahmar’s residents have a lease from the landowners.5 The village of Khan al-Ahmar was erected in 1951 when members of the Bedouin Jahalin tribe arrived to the area after being expelled from the Negev desert in 1948 during the Nakba.

The village is in what Israel refers to as “East 1” or the E1 area of the West Bank, east of East Jerusalem. From the 1990s, the Israeli government has sought to expand the Ma‘ale Adumim settlement into E1, known as the E1 Development Plan, a major Israeli settlement plan proposed for the area east of Jerusalem,6 which would create a continuous Israeli presence from East Jerusalem to the rest of the occupied West Bank, disconnecting the Palestinian territory of East Jerusalem from the West Bank. Such a move is seen as effectively eradicating the possibility of a two-state solution in which East Jerusalem could become the capital of a Palestinian state.7

Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, codirector of Jahalin Solidarity, a Palestinian nonprofit advocating against displacement, explained why Israel is so intent on demolishing Khan al-Ahmar: It’s the domino whose collapse leads to the ethnic cleansing of the rest of the Bedouins in E1.

“Khan al-Ahmar has a claim to being legal here because they were present before 1967. And because they have the school, the mosque, and the clinic, it gives them foundation,” Godfrey-Goldstein told Jerusalem Story.8 “And once Israel gets rid of Khan al-Ahmar, then it’s much easier to get rid of everybody else.”

International pressure and the establishment of a primary school in 20099 helped delay Israeli settlers and politicians’ intended demolition and forcible transfer of the entire village of Khan al-Ahmar. In 2018, Israel’s Supreme Court sided with Regavim, a pro-settler Israeli nonprofit targeting Palestinian construction, ruling that the village should be evacuated. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Yehuda Eliyahu, the director of Smotrich’s newly created Settlements Administration, cofounded Regavim and are the officials in charge of dismantling settler outposts.10

Yet the Supreme Court backtracked on its decision and dismissed Regavim’s petition in May 2023, citing secret government information that the village should not be evacuated now “due to current reasons related to national security and foreign relations”—largely interpreted as Israel’s fear over international backlash.11 The European Union, United Nations, and other international bodies have continuously vocalized their opposition to Khan al-Ahmar’s destruction, stating such a move violates international law and may constitute a war crime.12

With legal efforts failing to realize Khan al-Ahmar’s demolition, the village and its advocates now believe that this new settler outpost is the new way to drive the community out.

According to Jahalin, the Civil Administration arrived in Khan al-Ahmar in October and when Jahalin questioned the soldiers as to why they have not dismantled the outpost yet, they told him: “The decision is higher up than us.”

“It’s the prime minister,” Jahalin said.