The Stream in the Valley and on Tik Tok

The last days of October have been much quieter than usual.

On one hand, this has given us a bit of rest, some breathing room to spend more time with the community. On the other hand, it’s a respite that’s hard to accept without unease, because we know the harassment will return sooner or later, and with greater numbers. Some of the teenage settlers living in the Avishai outpost (the outpost built after October 2023 above the wadi, overlooking the homes of two Palestinian families) are probably busy disrupting the olive harvest elsewhere. It’s a safe bet that they’ll be back as soon as the season ends, likely with new friends in tow.

Despite this, the few settlers who remain - one adult and two teenagers - never miss a moment of the day to breach the family compounds with their herds, damage the beehives, or gallop recklessly between the houses on horseback or ATVs to frighten the families.

Their reduced numbers, at least, give us a small measure of safety. Enough to move more freely around the village. So we attempt a little outing toward the nature reserve at the end of the road that also leads to the Avishai outpost - called the “Auja Farm” by the settlers.

Wadi el-Auja is known for its stream, located along the Abraham Path, the long hiking trail that crosses the West Bank. Just a few years ago, Palestinians from various towns would flock there on weekends, to walk, to rest with their families, to enjoy the beauty of the spring. 

The spring dried up this summer; the rains have stopped. The water pumping a bit further away, by the Israeli company Mekorot, but also by the Palestinian company Jerusalem West Undertaking near Ein Samiya (a Palestinian village ethnically cleansed a few months before October 7, in May 2023 [source Btselem], may also be part of the reason for the drying up of the spring. 

To make matters worse, access is now blocked by a yellow gate. The reserve has become an army fire zone. The flag of the Israeli National Park Authority flies above it, and the gate only opens for scheduled visits after calling the command center. We don’t stay long, the day is already drawing to a close.The last time activists went there, they were attacked by settlers. 

Needless to say, it’s been a long time since Palestinian families have dared to go. Since October 2023, it’s become nearly impossible. Sadly, this reality is no exception. All across occupied Palestine, trails and green spaces have become de facto inaccessible to Palestinians, due to the settlers’ violence. A few days earlier, on a rare day off, I had the chance to walk a bit farther along the Wadi Qelt trail. I used to go there often a few years ago. The place was always full of Palestinian families, children playing in the small pools formed by the stream. October 2025, there are only settlers now, reveling in their outing with friends, some carrying their M16s. But the laughter of Palestinian children has vanished from the river.

In Auja, as elsewhere, both adults and teenagers speak of the beauty of the Palestinian landscape, which they can no longer enjoy. The younger ones listen to these stories, and though the place lies only a few hundred meters from their homes, it has already become imaginary - a place they can now see only through the tales and photos of their elders.

Here, people often talk about their river. Mohammed, 14, scrolls through countless TikTok videos of Shelel el-‘Audja. You see the spring gushing, surrounded by green hills hard to reconcile with the ochre rocks that now pave the landscape. The comments overflow with “Allah yawadh” - “May God compensate,” or “May He bring it all back to us.”

Mohammed tells me that before, you could graze the herds in the hills, take a stroll, then nap under the trees on the way back down the wadi. Today, it’s the settlers, mostly children themselves, who drive their herds through the valley, forcing their way into Palestinian homes.

Mohammed watches them leading the flocks, taking over the role he himself once had, just two years ago. They’ve even stolen the keffiyeh he used to wear, now tied around their own heads.

“Look, I’m sure he’s younger than me,” he says. One of the young settlers, barely thirteen, is indeed forcing his way toward a house, perched on his donkey. What kind of world is it where the first thought of a bored thirteen-year-old is to frighten other children, rather than play football with them?

The village is still home to several hundred Palestinian Bedouins. The inhabitants haven’t left their homes, that’s one thing the settlers haven’t yet stolen. And it’s what makes our presence here meaningful, what gives our work a purpose.

Yet despite our efforts, and before all our eyes, it’s a way of life that’s being taken away: the tradition of herding, the flocks themselves, even the simple joy of walking in the shade of the trees.

Glad to have found a pastime, Mohammed keeps showing me, after the TikTok videos, the photos of the valley’s hills.

For him, it’s already become a memory.