In a village called Yanoun, in the northern West Bank, there is an eerie calm. On the day that I visit, it is scorching hot and most people remain indoors, except for a young boy riding a donkey down the road. Yanoun is a small village, divided into upper and lower sections, with its tan houses blending into the hillside. If you hadn’t been warned, you might not think anything was out of the ordinary. However, the electrical lines and small buildings that sit atop the surrounding hilltops are not benign structures. They are settler outposts from the nearby Israeli settlement of Itamar—precursors to additional construction. They represent violence, both physical and structural. Even under Israeli law, outposts are illegal, which gives the impression that other settlements built on Palestinian land are somehow not. Under international law, no form of settlements are legal, and most governments of the world have deemed them an obstacle to peace. Nevertheless, construction never stops, and outposts are rarely dismantled.

I meet up with one of the internationals that temporarily resides in Upper Yanoun, (internationals have had a presence here since 2003), and he shows me around the tiny village to explain the situation. We can only walk so far on all sides and he is quick to warn me when we are approaching an unofficial boundary line. We do not want to do anything that could provoke the settlers who are always watching from above. At the height of settler violence in 2002, most residents of Yanoun fled the area, yet returned when international and Israeli peace activists came to offer some type of protection. Villagers had been physically attacked and their animals slaughtered. Crops were set on fire right before harvest time and farm machinery was damaged. Although the village has seen a reduction in settler violence, a constant fear remains.

Perhaps more damaging than the physical violence, is the structural violence that is always lurking. Yanoun, like 62% of the West Bank, falls under Area C, meaning it is under full Israeli security and administrative responsibility. However, the villagers receive virtually no protection from the military or the police. The system in place disallows new construction in the village as evidenced by a heap of rubble that remains—ruins of a house that a young man tried to build for his family, right next to his parent’s home. It was demolished by the army soon after its completion. Farming in certain areas and at certain times is not allowed. Digging new or deeper wells is not allowed either, even though the villagers’ water levels are at extremely low levels. At times, the settlers come down the mountain to swim in Yanoun’s scarce drinking water.

These regulations that infringe on the basic economic and social rights of the Palestinians are in place to “protect” the settlers and to secure their disproportionate allotment of resources. Being that the Yanoun community relies heavily on farming for their livelihoods, these security justifications are severe and work as yet another way to force the residents out. Many of them have had to find jobs in the nearby towns of Aqraba or Nablus to supplement their farm work. The younger population find themselves in a difficult position—to leave Yanoun in search of a better life, free from fear, or stay to preserve the land in which their ancestors have lived for generations.

When the residents fled in 2002, the village received some international attention, including a visit from the BBC. Yanoun had become a site of ethnic cleansing, a modern day 1948. Thankfully, international and Israeli activists took the problem into their own hands, choosing to act since their own governments had failed to do so. However, the foreign presence is just a band-aid in Yanoun. It has not stopped the settlements. It has not prevented new outposts. While Yanoun may enjoy relative calm in the absence of physical attacks, neighboring communities continue to suffer from both settler attacks and home demolitions carried out by the army.

And there is no reason to believe that the proliferation of settlements and outposts will stop anytime soon. Yanoun is almost completely surrounded, and if the past is any indication of the future, the outposts will soon turn into large neighborhoods that will further encroach on Palestinian land and steal more vital resources making life impossible for the villagers.

Settlement expansion has been allowed to continue, not only due to Israeli government policy, but also because nothing more than empty warnings have come from the international community. A UN resolution that sparked some hope earlier this year was blocked by a U.S. veto. The resolution sought to condemn and cease all settlement building in the occupied territories, but the U.S. position was to rely on the same worn-out method that has thus far failed to work—return to the negotiating table, not the UN, not international law. It is unclear how much longer these villages will last, but if major players such as the United States continue to block alternative pathways, especially those based on international law, Yanoun will become just another emptied Palestinian town, another familiar story of pain for the Palestinian people.

Meg Walsh is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.