New wall threatens thousands of Palestinian families
The Israeli military is building a 22-kilometer-long wall and a 50-meter-wide, off-limits military-only road deep inside the occupied West Bank – a project that will cut Palestinian landowners off from millions of square meters of their lands, displace Palestinian farming communities whose buildings will be demolished and further sever movement between parts of the northern occupied West Bank.
In late November and early December 2025, Israeli forces began issuing dozens of demolition orders for homes, farms, greenhouses, livestock pens, water networks and other structures along the planned route of the new segment of the wall in the northern Jordan Valley. Countless Palestinians and their families living off these lands, whether landowners or employed workers, will be severely affected.
“The wall will isolate large swathes of privately owned, very fertile land. We are talking about some 190,000-200,000 dunams [190-200 square kilometers] of land that will end up on the other side of the wall,” Abdullah Abu Rahmeh, director general of the Popular Action Department at the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, told The Electronic Intifada.
Set to be built some 12 kilometers west of the Jordanian border, this first stage of the new wall will run between two main Israeli military checkpoints – Tayasir and Hamra – controlling movement between Jenin, Tubas and Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank, and the Jordan Valley, including Jericho.
“This area is a vital link between the north, west and east of the occupied West Bank. Access to the Jordan Valley will become extremely difficult, making it easier to further empty the area of its residents,” said Hussein Abu Hatab, a member of the local council of Ein Shibli – one of the villages affected.
“Farmers traveling from Tammun or al-Faraa in Tubas to work in the Jordan Valley will struggle to enter and exit the area. This will then make it easier for the occupation to seize [their land],” he told The Electronic Intifada.
“Crimson” landgrab
The wall will begin from the village of Ein Shibli, east of Nablus, and extend north to the Tayasir military checkpoint east of Tubas. It will slice through the lands of the towns and villages of Tubas, Tammun, Tayasir, Atouf, Yarza, Aqaba and Ein Shibli.
It will also turn the villages of Yarza and Ein Shibli into enclaves, with the former to be completely encircled.
According to Israeli media, the new section of the wall forms part of the “Crimson Thread” – the name given by the occupying state’s defense ministry to a much larger, $1.7 billion project for a wall that, once completed, will extend for about 500 kilometers – from the occupied Golan Heights on the Syrian border in the north, to the Red Sea near Eilat in the south.
In a statement, the defense ministry said the new project aims to “strengthen national security and strategic control over the eastern border”..
Palestinians reject the security explanation as subterfuge.
“The goal is clear. It is about taking over Palestinian resources and cutting off residents from their lands, in order to seize and annex these areas for the benefit of illegal settlers,” said Abu Rahmeh.
The targeted areas are among the most important farming lands of the occupied West Bank. The Jordan Valley sits at the bottom of a geological basin, where for millennia seasonal streams flowing from the central highlands have deposited nutrient-rich sediments, forming deep fertile soils and groundwater aquifers. Lying well below sea level, the valley is also warmer than the rest of the West Bank, allowing for long and productive growing seasons.
Thousands of families affected
The stunning plains of Tammun and Atouf – known locally as the al-Beqaia plain – are some of the areas that will be most affected.
“Atouf and Tammun will lose about 70 percent of their lands – some 65 square kilometers will end up behind the wall. We went to Israeli courts but we don’t know what our fate will be,” Abdullah Bisharat, head of the Atouf local council, told The Electronic Intifada.
“Everything grows here. We have banana crops covering about 1.5 million square meters. We have no less than 1.5 million square meters of thyme,” he continued. “We have 2 million square meters of grapes, both in greenhouses and open fields. We have olives, potatoes and onions. We also have tomatoes.”
The area, Bisharat estimated, supports “four to five thousand families, if not more.”
“If this is all gone, these families will be devastated.”
Israel already has direct control over 60 percent of the occupied West Bank, the Oslo Accords-designated Area C, where hundreds of its illegal settlements are located.
These are served and secured by nearly 800 obstacles to Palestinian movement, from checkpoints to road gates, as well as military bases, off-limits firing zones and “nature reserves.”
Since the start of Israel’s genocide in occupied Gaza, the rate of Israeli land theft has accelerated to the highest in decades. In 2024, the Israeli government declared a total of 23.7 million square meters of West Bank land as “state land.” This included 12 million square meters in the Jordan Valley alone – described as the largest single seizure since the Oslo process began in 1993.
Meanwhile, Israeli officials and ministers have increasingly abandoned the language of “temporary occupation” for “security,” openly pushing for annexation.
Senior figures in the government have spoken explicitly about securing “maximum land with a minimum number of Palestinians,” framing territorial expansion as a clear demographic objective.
“Open-air prison”
The new wall will begin in Ein Shibli, which will be doubly affected – stuck between the Hamra military checkpoint and the new wall.
“Ein Shibli will be in a special situation: a checkpoint on the eastern side and a wall on the western side, turning it into an open-air prison,” said Abu Hatab of the local village council.
Villagers are fearful.
“Residents here feel deep psychological distress and frustration,” Abu Hatab told The Electronic Intifada. “[It] will be a catastrophe for Ein Shibli. It will create a crisis at the entrance to the village – with difficulty for students, patients and residents to exit and enter. The road is small, and with a checkpoint there will be congestion and closure, effectively sealing off the village.”
Large tracts of private farming lands belonging to residents of Ein Shibli will also be rendered inaccessible when the wall is built, Abu Hatab said.
The new wall is one of many dangerous developments over the past two years in the occupied West Bank, where over 10,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes, while illegal Israeli settlements and outposts on stolen land are increasing at accelerating levels.
“This is about restricting movement and isolating Palestinians into besieged population centers, cut off from their natural resources, and their livelihoods destroyed,” said Abu Rahmeh.
“They are pushing people into the cities and villages, in cantons closed off with gates that they control.”
Photo: Abdullah Bisharat, head of the Atouf local council, one of the villages that will be affected, stands on the planned route of the new wall with the Israeli demolition orders. Source: EI.
