Palestinian Authority security forces raided a Bedouin encampment near Al Auja in the Jordan Valley last week, wielding batons and riot shields as they forcibly dismantled tents sheltering families from winter storms. The operation, documented in footage released by the Regavim Movement, exposes a brutal strategy: the PA is using Bedouin civilians as human pawns to establish illegal outposts on Israeli state land in Area C.
The videos show PA police confiscating tents and temporary structures that protected women and children from heavy rain and wind, leaving them exposed in open terrain. The stated purpose: forcing these families to return to Ras Ein al-Auja, an area the PA is working to consolidate as part of its unilateral annexation campaign in the Jordan Valley.
The explanation lies in understanding the PA’s territorial ambitions in Area C, which comprises approximately 60 percent of Judea and Samaria and falls under full Israeli civil and security control according to the Oslo Accords. The PA has systematically deployed Bedouin families as demographic tools, establishing illegal encampments throughout strategic areas to create facts on the ground. When these families attempt to relocate, even temporarily, PA forces drive them back to maintain the territorial claims.
This strategy has deadly consequences. The Jordan Valley region, including the Al Auja area, has witnessed numerous terrorist attacks targeting Israeli civilians. In April 2023, British-Israeli citizens Lucy Dee and her daughters Maia and Rina were murdered in a shooting attack on Route 57 in the northern Jordan Valley. Rabbi Leo Dee, who survived the attack that killed his wife and daughters, has since become an advocate for Israeli sovereignty in the region. The terrorists who carried out that attack exploited the porous security environment created by illegal Palestinian construction and encampments throughout Area C.
While international organizations rushed to condemn Israel based on the PA’s propaganda, the actual perpetrator was the Palestinian Authority itself, using violence against its own people to advance territorial claims. The PA manufactures crises, cries out for international intervention, and points fingers at Israel while wielding the club against defenseless families.
Regavim spokesperson noted that the PA’s official news agency immediately issued appeals to the international community, claiming the Bedouin face “escalating existential threats as a result of the occupation” and demanding protection under international humanitarian law. The hypocrisy is staggering: the PA attacks these families, then blames Israel for their suffering.
This pattern repeats across Area C. Names like Khirbet Zanuta and Khan al-Ahmar have become synonymous with PA duplicity, where Bedouin communities are exploited for propaganda while simultaneously being coerced into serving as human shields for territorial expansion. The international community funds this theater, pouring resources into illegal construction that violates the Oslo Accords while condemning Israel for enforcing its own laws on state land.
Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum have called for applying sovereignty to the Jordan Valley. Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich has stated that 2025 is the year for annexation of Judea and Samaria, with the Jordan Valley as a priority. The strategic importance of the region cannot be overstated: it forms Israel’s eastern security barrier and contains significant portions of state land vital for national defense.
President Trump’s administration has signaled openness to Israeli sovereignty moves in these areas, creating a diplomatic window that did not exist under previous American administrations. The 2020 Trump peace plan explicitly recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, acknowledging both security imperatives and the historical Jewish connection to the land.
The Palestinian Authority was established under the Oslo framework to provide autonomous governance for Palestinian Arabs. Instead, it has weaponized humanitarian concerns, using vulnerable populations as instruments of warfare. The Bedouin families suffering in Al Auja are victims not of Israeli policy but of Palestinian Authority cynicism. They are tools in a campaign to establish what amounts to a terror state in the heartland of Israel, their welfare sacrificed for territorial ambitions.
“The Palestinian Authority will stop at nothing in its efforts to carry out a unilateral takeover of Israeli land,” Regavim’s spokesperson noted. “It forcibly expels Bedouin families and compels them to invade areas under Israeli control—while pumping out the libelous narrative that the “occupation” is harming vulnerable villagers. The Palestinian Authority was created for the very purpose of providing dignified, autonomous solutions for these people; instead, it is using them to take over Israeli land in Area C – as human shields for the program of hostile takeover and the establishment of a de facto terror state in the heart of Israel.
The footage from Al Auja tears away the mask. The threat to Bedouin families comes not from Israeli enforcement of sovereignty over state land, but from a Palestinian Authority willing to beat its own people with batons in driving rain to maintain illegal outposts. Israel has the legal right, the moral imperative, and the security necessity to assert full sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and all of Area C. The question is not whether Israel should act, but how long the international community will continue funding this brutal charade.
“It is time to tear off the masks of Abu Mazen and the brutal Palestinian terrorist authority,” Regavim said. “We have seen this ‘Pallywood’ too many times – and the public continues to fall for it over and over. The names of Bedouin “villages” like Khirbet Zanuta and Khan al Ahmar have become famous for precisely this kind of Palestinian Authority duplicity and cruelty. The hypocrisy has been laid bare— as has the PA’s objective: Using vulnerable Bedouin families as tools for the establishment of a terror state and the destruction of Israel.”
