An entire Palestinian community fled their tiny West Bank village last fall after repeated threats from Israeli settlers with a history of violence. Then, in a rare endorsement of Palestinian land rights, Israel’s highest court ruled this summer the displaced residents of Khirbet Zanuta were entitled to return under the protection of Israeli forces.
But their homecoming has been bittersweet. In the intervening months, nearly all the houses in the village, a health clinic and a school were destroyed — along with the community’s sense of security in the remote desert land where they have farmed and herded sheep for decades.
Roughly 40% of former residents have so far chosen not to return. The 150 or so that have come back are sleeping outside the ruins of their old homes. They say they are determined to rebuild – and to stay – even as settlers once again try to intimidate them into leaving and a court order prevents them from any new construction.
“There is joy, but there are some drawbacks,” said Fayez Suliman Tel, the head of the village council and one of the first to come back to see the ransacked village – roofs seemingly blown off buildings, walls defaced by graffiti.
“The situation is extremely miserable,” Tel said, “but despite that, we are steadfast and staying in our land, and God willing, this displacement will not be repeated.”
The villagers of Khirbet Zanuta had long faced harassment and violence from settlers. But after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas that launched the war in Gaza, they said they received explicit death threats from Israelis living in an unauthorized outpost up the hill called Meitarim Farm. The outpost is run by Yinon Levi, who has been sanctioned by the U.S., UK, EU and Canada for menacing his Palestinian neighbors.
The villagers say they reported the threats and attacks to Israeli police, but said they got little help. Fearing for their lives, at the end of October, they packed up whatever they could carry and left.
Though settler violence had been rising even before the war under the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it has been turbocharged ever since Oct. 7. More than 1,500 Palestinians have been displaced by settler violence since then, according to the United Nations, and very few have returned home.
Khirbet Zanuta stands as a rare example. It is unclear if any other displaced community has been granted a court's permission to return since the start of the war.
Even though residents have legal protection Israel's highest court, they still have to contend with Levi and other young men from the Meitarim Farm outpost trying to intimidate them.
West+Bank
Palestinians Ribhi Ahmad Battat, left, and Issa Ahmad Battat, residents of the West Bank village of Khirbet Zanuta, take shelter from the midday sun in a cave Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024.
West+Bank
Goats stand in the midday sun, in the West Bank village of Khirbet Zanuta, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024.
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Fayez Suliman Tel, head of the village council for Khirbet Zanuta, stands next to a home that was destroyed when his community was driven out by Israeli settlers, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024.
West+Bank
A child stands in the ruins of a stone house in the West Bank village of Khirbet Zanuta, overlooking the Meitarim Farm, owned by sanctioned settler Yinon Levy Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024.
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Israeli Police speak to residents of the West Bank village of Khirbet Zanuta, after activists called to report Israeli setters in the village,Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024.
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A stone house is defaced with Israeli settlers' graffiti in the West Bank village of Khirbet Zanuta, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024.