Jabal Al Baba, West Bank
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At the top of a Palestinian village overlooking Jerusalem, Atala Mazara is anti-minded about his long-standing dreams. His Bedouin village, Jabal al-Baba, is located near the occupied geographical centre of the West Bank, and is balanced between the north and south of what constitutes a future Palestinian state.
But as the day passes, the dream appears to disappear to the horizon farther than ever before.
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced last week the final approval of thousands of new housing units to expand Israeli Male Admim settlement.
Smotrich revealed that his goal was to kill the prospects of the Palestinian state, saying, “The Palestinian state is being erased from the table with actions rather than slogans.”
“We want to confiscate this area to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Our fate is not just mine, but all children, all women, everyone. I am afraid,” Mazaraa, leader of the village committee, told CNN.
About 7,000 Palestinians living in 22 Bedouin communities face the threat of forced displacement by E1, according to the Palestinian authorities Governor of Jerusalem.
Jabal Al Baba is one of the communities that live in 80 families, with a total of 450 Palestinians. The village has about 3,000 animals, a bedrock of life for Bedouin shepherds.
As Mazara walks around the house, he says he could be bulldozed at any time, so he points to the residence of the nearby Jewish Mar Admim.
“The Bedouin presence on this land, unlike the existence of settlements, complements nature and benefits,” he said.
Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the war of 1967 and then began establishing Jewish settlements deemed illegal by international law, the United Nations and much of the international community. The United Nations also views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories, where Palestinians seek a future state.
Settlements are widely viewed as the greatest obstacle of the Palestinian state, with many Jewish communities expanding around Palestinian population centres, often built on privately owned Palestinian land. Today, UN figures show that 700,000 Jewish settlers live among the approximately 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
“These families have been here for their lives since before 1967,” says Mazara. “They were here before the settlement was built… As a Bedouin, it is important that I remain in this area. It is not Israel’s right to choose my life for me in another area.”
To counteract the prospects of the Palestinian state was the honest desire of Bezarel Sumotrich and other members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.
He has long advocated for the expansion of Jewish settlements. According to leak audio from June 2024, Smotrich said the way to prevent a Palestinian state that puts the Israeli state at risk is to develop Jewish settlements. “The goal is to change the DNA of the system over the years.”
After US President Donald Trump won the US election, Sumotrich ordered preparations for the annexation of settlements in the West Bank. He told Knesset (Israel Congress) that Trump’s victory “will bring important opportunities to the nation of Israel.” Smotrich, the “only way to remove” the “threat” of the Palestinian state, added that “the application of Israeli sovereignty to the entire Israeli and Samaria settlements,” a biblical term for the Israelites to refer to the West Bank.
Just south of the village is Aleizariya, the bustling Palestinian town of East Jerusalem. It’s a fast-moving community that tunes horns and busy streets and meets commercial needs.
Some of the evacuated Bedouins will be forced to move to the city, Municipal official Mohammad Mathal told CNN. It is a different world for the Bedouins, an unfamiliar environment, a living and earning money, and there is no place to graze livestock.
In addition to building a reconciliation for E1, Israel plans to straighten out Al-eizariya and build roads that will set up separate road systems for Israelis and Palestinians, according to Peace Now, an organization that closely tracks the expansion of the reconciliation.
When CNN visited the town, Matar said we had been given 112 demolition orders to the shopkeeper and the eviction deadline had already passed. In a barely quiet conversation, the Palestinians asked in fear if they had heard the news about what would happen next.
Some people had already chosen to cut their losses and close the shop as soon as the order was issued despite no prospect of compensation. Others who had previously experienced these threats have chosen to stay.
“They are waiting for God or state intervention to stop this project,” Matar said.
Residents said Al-eizariya is considered a “food basket” for the city of Jerusalem. It hosts the largest shopping market on the West Bank, connecting the north to the south.
If Israel’s planned roads are built, they will have to go elsewhere to find their needs, making it more difficult and expensive. As for the shopkeeper, they fear that the savings of their lives will be exhausted.
“I put all the money here. If they destroy it, there’s nothing to do anymore. I’m 65 years old. I hope they don’t.”
“I hope (US) President (Donald) Trump will be involved and stop this.”
During Trump’s first term, his administration laid out a vision that became known as the “Deals of the Century.” Trump’s plans vaguely referred to a limited portion of East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state. But since Trump re-inaugurated office, he has hardly mentioned this long-term plan.
Hagit ofran is an Israeli peace activist and co-director of the current peace clock. She monitors Israeli settlements and has opposed Israel’s occupation of the West Bank for decades.
She said nearly two years of attacks in Gaza, Israel, made it difficult to get people’s attention on the West Bank.
“We are fighting to end the war in Gaza and to end the occupation in the West Bank. That’s a crazy world here,” she told CNN.
When considering building roads to promote movement of residents of the E1 settlement, Ofran said it would effectively close the West Bank centre for the Palestinians and control their movement. Palestinian homes will be demolished and communities will be quarantined.
“I don’t know how they will have access to the territory they normally access, and it depends on the goodwill of this government.
“We can’t develop a viable economy rather than talking about the nation,” she said. “It is impossible to have a capital in East Jerusalem for the Palestinians.”
For some Palestinians, the recent final recognition of the E1 settlement did not wipe out the idea of the Palestinian state, as Israel wiped it out long ago by creating facts on earth.
“If you look at the settlements that are currently ubiquitous, it is impossible to build a Palestinian state with geographical continuity,” said Khalil Tufakzi, a Palestinian cartographer who has been monitoring Israeli settlements since 1983.
He said the move spells the end of the Palestinian future, but that ending was confirmed long ago.
“They (the Israeli government) used President Trump to implement the plan on October 7th.”
Back on the hill, Mazara stares at the village in the wind beneath the trees in the afternoon spread.
“It’s not just my life. It’s my memory and my childhood. I know every corner of the area,” he said.
“Jabal al-Baba is not only the end of the Bedouin dreams who live here, but also the end of all Palestinian dreams of having a future nation.”
