Video: How settler attacks and water diversion erased a Palestinian community

Haitham Rashaidh was among the last to leave his home near Ein al-Auja, a natural spring and waterfall north of Jericho in the occupied West Bank. His family packed up their tents and heaped all their belongings onto a tractor, and then began the two-hour journey across difficult terrain towards al-Balqa, a sparsely populated area of the Jordan Valley, where they set up camp alongside their displaced neighbours. Leaving Ein al-Auja felt like losing a part of themselves, Rashaidh explained mournfully. Water once flowed here in a torrent, estimated at thousands of cubic metres daily - yet today, the ground is parched, the spring that once supported a Bedouin community of more than 100 families reduced to a trickle. Palestinians used to treasure Ein al-Auja as an oasis of calm in a region under siege. But Israel’s diversion of water, alongside continuing settler attacks, ultimately made life in the community untenable.