Just meters from the last houses in Bardala, a Palestinian village at the northern end of the occupied West Bank, Israel's army has been bulldozing a dirt road and ditch between the community and open grazing land on the hills behind it.
Israel's military said the works were for security and to allow it to patrol the area following the killing of an Israeli civilian in August near the village by a man from another town. It did not detail what it was building there.
Farmers from the fertile Jordan Valley village fear the army patrols and Israeli settlers moving in will exclude them from pastures that feed around 10,000 sheep and goats, as has happened in other parts of the West Bank, undercutting their livelihoods and eventually driving them from the village.
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