The last family in the Palestinian village of Yanoun left their home last week, joining a growing list of communities that have been erased from existence through the establishment of Israeli “shepherding outposts” in their place.
From Mondoweiss via This RSS Feed.
Today, Israeli settlers often take over Palestinian land in the West Bank’s countryside by establishing what are known as shepherding outposts — illegal settler outposts that are set up on Palestinian land for the purpose of grazing livestock, usually as a prelude to more violent forms of harassment and intimidation. Yanoun is one of the earliest testing grounds for this rural colonization strategy, according to local historian and social researcher Hamza Aqrabawi in an interview with al-Quds al-Arabi on December 29, 2025.
Aqrabawi told al-Quds al-Arabi that a settler by the name of Avraham Avri Ran established a shepherding outpost near Yanoun in the mid-1990s, which served as a gathering point for settler gangs and later formed the nucleus of what would become known as the Hilltop Youth movement.
