On Monday, 23 February 2026, the community of Wadi a-Sha’er, which has seven families, numbering 39 people, including 20 children, was forcibly transferred from its seat of nearly 30 years, north of the town of a-Lubban a-Sharqiyah, after settlers threatened to shoot or burn the residents if they did not leave. In recent years, and especially over the past three months, settlers from the area have harassed the residents of the community, forced them out of pastureland, tried to steal their livestock and threatened to shoot or burn them if they did not leave.
On Thursday, 19 February 2026, at around 12:30 A.M., several settlers invaded the community, broke into the home of Tareq and Maryam Abu Diyah, both in their forties. They attacked Maryam and Tareq’s father, Yusef Abu Diyah, 70, with wooden sticks and threatened to burn the residents if they did not leave the area by Monday, 23 February 2026. Following this incident, community members began taking down their homes and moving their belongings and livestock. On Sunday, 22 February 2026, the residents noticed settlers watching them from a nearby hill, and on Monday evening, they completed the move.
The community’s families are originally from the Kisan area, but in 1975, Israel forced them off their lands. They moved between various parts of the West Bank until settling in Wadi a-Sha’er, on land belonging to the village of a-Lubban a-Sharqiyah, in an area defined in the Oslo Accords as Area B. Over time, the residents purchased land in the area. Due to a scarcity of pastureland and land available for residential use, this time, the families were forced to scatter among different places, with some moving to the village of a-Lubban a-Sharqiyah, some to ‘Ammuriyah and some to Khirbet Qeis, south of the city of Salfit.