Taybeh (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Within an hour, the Bedouin village of Wadi al-Seeq in the occupied West Bank had been completely emptied, its 200 residents fleeing on foot with their sheep and goats. On October 12, five days after the start of the war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, residents say dozens of Israelis turned up at the village and gave them an hour to leave their land, among them settlers, soldiers and police. The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the incident, despite several AFP requests. Since the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel on 7 October, more than 120 Palestinians have been killed across the occupied West Bank where violence had already been spiralling. Even before the Gaza war, the death toll in the Palestinian territory had reached its highest levels since at least 2005.
