Masafer Yatta, a collection of shepherding hamlets, is in Area C, the sparsely populated 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli control and under threat of annexation. Palestinian water cisterns, solar panels, roads and buildings are frequently demolished on the grounds that they do not have building permits, which are nearly impossible to obtain, while surrounding illegal Israeli settlements flourish. One Palestinian resident, Alaa Hathleen, told the Guardian he and his neighbours were under threat. Over the past three weeks, he says, settlers have burned down homes and attacked Palestinians residing there, as violence from Israeli settlers and IDF forces has intensified in the aftermath of the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October ‘A new Nakba’: settler violence forces Palestinians out of West Bank villages