Israeli settlers use sheep herds to displace Palestinians in West Bank

On the arid hilltops of the West Bank, a conflict older than modern nations is being waged with an unlikely weapon: sheep. Over the past several years, Israeli settlers have established roughly 200 sheep farms across the territory, and these herds have become instruments of territorial expansion and Palestinian displacement. The farms now occupy an estimated 20 percent of the West Bank—a landscape that has hosted shepherds for millennia, but never quite like this.

Mordehai Minster, who cofounded one of these operations, describes the strategy with disarming clarity. Sheep, he explains, are a language everyone understands. When settlers drive their herds into Palestinian communities, they are drawing a line: this is where we graze, where you do not plant, where you do not build. The herds enter Palestinian homes, their gates left open so the animals can strip the vegetation around the houses. It is a form of pressure that requires no formal declaration, no written order. Over 100 Palestinian communities have been displaced or effectively erased by this encroaching occupation and the violence that accompanies it.

The young men behind much of this expansion are known as Hilltop Youth—teenagers and men in their twenties who have arrived in the West Bank seeking adventure and, they are told, a divine mission to reclaim ancestral land. Minster characterizes them as kids who struggled in school, who didn't easily enter the military, some with behavioral problems or drug use. There are roughly 500 in a hardcore core, with another thousand drifting in and out. This year alone, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has documented more than 1,600 incidents of settler violence: fields stormed, olive trees cut down, cars torched, property destroyed, farmers and livestock harassed.

In the village of Jannatah—which means paradise in Arabic—the Faraj family has held deeds to their land for generations. On March 26, a group of 20 to 25 settlers arrived and established what Hassan Faraj calls a tent outpost in his backyard, cutting off access to his cousin's house entirely. When family members attempt to reach their property, the young settlers rush down with wooden sticks and stones. In one confrontation, Hassan says, three of the settlers were armed. One fired a shot that struck his cousin Muhammad in the head. The beating continued after that, with wood sticks falling on Muhammad and Hassan's uncle. The family has little faith that anyone will face prosecution; only a tiny fraction of these cases ever result in charges.

When Hassan tried again to reach his home with a camera crew present, the Hilltop Youth appeared within seconds in their black hoodies, blocking his path. He kept his hands behind his back to prevent them from claiming he had struck first. He shouted in Hebrew: "This is my land and you won't stay. These are my roots." They hit him anyway. One headbutted him, breaking his nose. He was blocked from retreating. In the end, Hassan was forced off his own property while the settlers remained.

Not all Jewish Israelis support this expansion. A group called Sons of Abraham, composed largely of activists who grew up in right-wing religious homes, now works to protect Palestinians under siege. Some, like a woman named Amana, were once Hilltop Youth themselves. They position themselves as human shields, betting that settlers will hesitate to attack other Jews. Amana tells the young settlers: I grew up as you did, I know what you're doing, and it is not the right way. Roie, another activist, speaks of the pain of watching childhood friends behave this way. He reframes the violence not as settler action but as state violence—the violence of a government that has shown unwillingness to crack down. The Israeli government has condemned the violence while simultaneously pouring tens of millions of dollars into expanding the sheep farms, arming them, and providing American-made off-roaders.

With Israeli elections two weeks away and U.S. midterm elections a month off, the political ground is shifting. Democrats have threatened to limit military aid to Israel partly because of the West Bank attacks. Minster worries about American public opinion and the loss of American support, though he frames it as losing a friendship rather than an existential threat. Israel, he suggests, will find other allies. But the immediate question remains unresolved: whether the next government in Jerusalem will finally move to stop what is happening on those hilltops, or whether the sheep will continue their slow march across Palestinian land.