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Mu’arrajat is one of the many Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank that have been demolished or forcibly displaced by Israeli settlers in the last year. Aliya Milhat, a Palestinian journalist and activist, lived in Mu’arrajat with her family until they were forcibly displaced in March.

“My family and I were forced out under gun threats [sic], along with all the families of the village,” Milhat told Truthout. “We cried over our beautiful days there, and we are still crying. We are in shock because we never deserved this. We are peaceful people who love life, simple and educated people, and we never imagined leaving our home this way.”

Residents attempted to return to the village last week, after Israel’s High Court ruled that the Israeli military must facilitate their return, but they were repelled by Israeli settlers who set fire to one of the remaining homes.

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The expulsion in March was the culmination of years of violence by Israeli settlers and the Israeli military, working in tandem to ensure that life in Mu’arrajat was all but impossible for its residents until they were forcibly expelled. Milhat told Truthout that the primary cause of their displacement was the Zohar Tzafon outpost, a type of illegal Israeli settlement typically built on a hilltop in the West Bank, with another satellite outpost built just outside the village last year. Oftentimes a distinction is drawn between Israeli settlers committing acts of violence in the West Bank and official Israeli policy, but without the financial support of the Israeli government, the expansion of settlements and outposts in the West Bank over the last decade would not have been possible, as Haaretz concluded in an

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