NEW YORK: A ravenous pest is threatening the livelihood of millions of people in the Middle East and Africa — but the menace did not appear overnight. In fact it has been slowly building for three years.
Locusts breed in remote areas and thrive in damp conditions. Moisture is critical if their eggs are to survive and hatch, and it also feeds the fresh, green vegetation they need for food and shelter.
In early 2018, the insects found the perfect breeding ground in the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a part of the desert that is difficult to access, with “sand dunes as tall as Manhattan skyscrapers.”
There are no roads, no villages and no means of communication, so the normal steps to monitor and contain growing swarms of locusts could not be taken. Then the weather intervened to make matters worse.
It is extremely rare for two cyclones to bring storms to the area in the same year, but that is exactly what happened. In October 2018, just as the sand in the Empty Quarter had started to dry out after the first storm, a second brought more rain. As a result, the swarm of locusts began to grow out of control.
“That allowed for three generations of breeding: an 8,000-fold increase in locust numbers over a very short period of nine months,” said Keith Cressman, senior locust forecasting officer at the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). For the past 33 years he has been operating a desert locust monitoring and early-warning system.
“It was like Club Med,” he added. “The locusts were completely on holiday.”
When the vegetation that had sprouted thanks to all the rain, on which the locusts had been feeding during breeding, was stripped bare, the insects began to migrate. The first swarm headed across the Persian Gulf into Iran, Pakistan, India and Southwest Asia. A second went in the opposite direction, toward Yemen.
In summer 2019, the locusts hopped across the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden to Somalia and Ethiopia where they plagued the Horn of Africa, aided by widespread seasonal rains that again provided the perfect conditions for intensive breeding.
The FAO carried out control operations that it said saved 2.7 million tons of cereal crops, enough to feed 18 million people for a year in countries that are already reeling from poverty and food insecurity.
Last month, however, Cyclone Gati brought flooding to northern Somalia, which created the conditions for infestations to spread further in the coming months. The FAO has warned that new swarms are already forming and threatening to return to northern Kenya. Breeding is also taking place on both sides of the Red Sea, posing renewed threats to Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and Yemen.
Farmers in Saudi Arabia and Sudan are well aware of the danger from desert locusts, which represent the greatest pest threat to agriculture in those countries. Both have well-established national programs to keep infestation under control.
However farmers in Kenya, for example, have not seen a plague of locusts for 70 years. They have only heard horror stories about such a thing from their grandparents. These farmers lack resources for irrigation and so they grow their crops on the edge of the desert — which means they will be the first to lose their crops when swarms of locusts emerge from the heart of the desert.
Farmers sometimes mistake an approaching swarm of locusts for a rainstorm, only to see their crops destroyed in a matter of hours.
“In a good year, those crops represent your entire livelihood for your family — not only for that year, but often for the next several years to come,” said Cressman. “It’s a bumper crop: you’re getting an extra harvest for the lean years. So, in half a day that swarm has wiped out your entire livelihood. That is a scary kind of thought.”
Yemen had an efficient national monitoring and control program that helped to prevent such agricultural disasters, but it has collapsed since the war began in the country. Cressman said that conflict means locust experts “can’t get into those areas anymore. It’s just not safe. You’re not going to risk your life for the locusts.”
He added: “Yemen is the key country here: it has become a reservoir of desert locusts since those first two cyclones.”
It has been raining continually in Yemen, causing floods in parts of the country where rain is not usually so common.
“The locusts are professional survivalists and they’ve just been opportunistically taking advantage of that,” said Cressman.
The FAO has appealed for funding of $40 million to increase surveillance and control efforts in the coming year in the worst-affected countries — including Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia — and to provide aid for farmers who have lost their livelihoods.
The organization said more than 35 million people are already acutely food insecure in those countries. It estimated that number could increase by 3.5 million if nothing is done to control the latest swarm.
The threat posed by the desert locusts follows three consecutive years of droughts followed by months of floods, along with the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s one shock after another,” said Cressman. “It’s just a piling up of additional shocks in a very fragile kind of region.
“If we don’t get the money, control operations risk being halted or severely reduced. We don’t want that to happen because locust swarms are coming in now prior to the next growing season and so they will increase. That will have very severe consequences for crop production and food security.”
How Israeli land grabs are redrawing the map of Palestine’s Jordan Valley
A major incursion in Tubas caused damage and displacement, but residents say a planned 22-km barrier poses bigger threat
Israel calls the “Scarlet Thread” wall a security measure; activists say it’s a land grab severing the Jordan Valley
Updated 18 December 2025
ANAN TELLO
LONDON: Israeli raids are not new to Tubas, a Palestinian governorate in the northern West Bank’s western Jordan Valley. But fears of de-facto annexation have intensified since November, after land confiscation orders were issued for a planned barrier dubbed the “Scarlet Thread.”
On Nov. 26, Israeli security forces, backed by a helicopter that reportedly opened fire, sealed off the governorate and raided Tubas City and nearby towns, including Tammun, Aqqaba, Tayasir and Wadi Al-Fara — home to more than 58,000 people.
The operation involved drones, aircraft, bulldozers and curfews, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA.
At least 160 Palestinians were injured, OCHA said, while homes and infrastructure sustained extensive damage. The raids also displaced residents and disrupted essential services, including water supplies.
A man stands okn the ruins of a Palestinian building destroyed on the day of an Israeli raid in Tammoun, near Tubas, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on May 15, 2025. (REUTERS)
In Al-Fara refugee camp, OCHA noted, Israeli forces seized at least 10 residential buildings, forcing at least 20 families to flee, and detained and interrogated dozens of Palestinians before withdrawing.
The Palestinian Detainees’ Affairs Society said 29 young men were detained in the camp and later released, with the exception of one.
Israeli military and internal security officials described the operation as part of a broad “counterterrorism” campaign.
Locally, however, concerns have grown not only over the scale of the assault but also its timing, which coincided with new land confiscation orders in the Jordan Valley.
Ahmed Al-Asaad, the Tubas governor, said the Israeli military has issued nine land confiscation orders to carve out a 22-kilometer settlement road that would isolate large areas of the Jordan Valley and extend to within 12 kilometers of the Jordanian border.
Israeli soldiers take part in an operation in Tubas, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on November 26, 2025. (REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman)
Although the orders were signed in August, Al-Asaad told Arab News that Palestinian landowners were not notified until Nov. 21, nearly three months later, and were given insufficient time to appeal.
An Arabic-language notice obtained by Arab News via WhatsApp from Mutaz Bisharat, a Palestinian official overseeing Jordan Valley affairs in Tubas, stated that the Israeli military ordered the confiscation of Palestinian land “for military purposes.”
Signed by Avi Bluth, head of the Israeli military in the West Bank, on Aug. 28, the order took effect “on the date of its signing” and remains in force until Dec. 31, 2027.
It instructed those “in possession of the lands” to remove all equipment and vegetation within seven days. It also said objections could be filed within seven days of the notice’s publication date through Israeli liaison offices.
Al-Asaad said landowners were given “only one week” to file objections, noting that two days fell on a weekend, while four days coincided with curfews during the first raid and two more during a second large-scale incursion.
“As a result, residents were unable to prepare land ownership documents,” he said.
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Palestinian landowners were invited on Dec. 3 to tour the land earmarked for confiscation. The seven-day appeal window, Al-Asaad said, was counted from the day of that tour.
But on Dec. 1, Israeli forces launched another large-scale operation, a day after withdrawing from the nearby Tammun. The three-day raid imposed an open-ended curfew on Tubas City and surrounding towns, according to OCHA.
During the operation, forces blocked five main roads with earth mounds, three in Tubas City and two in Aqqaba, as well as several secondary roads, severely restricting movement for about 30,000 Palestinians.
At least eight residential buildings were converted into military posts, forcibly displacing at least 11 families, OCHA said in a Dec. 4 situation update.
The land earmarked for confiscation under the “Scarlet Thread” project covers about 1,160 dunams, 85 percent of which is privately owned by residents of Tubas and Tammun, The Times of Israel reported, citing an X post by Israeli civil rights activist Dror Etkes.
Dunam is a unit of land area equal to 1,000 square meters or 0.1 hectares.
The Israeli military told the newspaper that the project was introduced based on a “clear military need” to prevent arms smuggling and “terror attacks.”
Etkes rejected that justification, saying the real aim was to “ethnically cleanse” the land between the proposed barrier and what Israel calls the Allon Road to the east, an area of about 45,000 dunams, with residents ultimately forced out.
On Dec. 1, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the army was preparing to build a new separation wall deep inside the occupied West Bank, in the heart of the Jordan Valley. The wall would stretch 22 kilometers and span 50 meters in width, cutting Palestinians off from tens of thousands of dunams of land.
According to the report, the project would require demolishing homes, agricultural buildings, wells, water lines and trees along the route.
It would also encircle the herding community of Khirbet Yarza, isolating about 70 residents who depend on several thousand sheep for their livelihood, and separate agricultural and pastoral communities from their lands, similar to what the separation barrier in the western West Bank has done.
Palestinians say the plan, if implemented, amounts to annexation of the northern West Bank.
“New notices have been issued, pursuant to the military orders, for the seizure of citizens’ lands in the areas of Tubas and Tammun, for the purpose of removing homes and agricultural projects, including greenhouses, sheds, and sheep pens,” Bisharat told Arab News.
He said authorities also ordered the removal of a 5-kilometer water pipeline.
“This decision will effectively end the Palestinian presence and agriculture on more than 22,000 dunams of cultivated land and lead to the displacement of more than 60 families,” he added.
While the Israeli military says the land is being seized for a road and barrier, Bisharat argues the true objective is annexation.
“These notices are issued under the pretext of opening a road and constructing the separation wall in Buqeia and the Jordan Valley,” he said. “But through these notices, the (Israeli) occupation is waging a war against the Palestinian presence in all residential communities, and against all farmers and agricultural projects.”
He added that Israel’s plan involves a “50-meter-wide corridor, along with a wall, gates and an earthen trench,” measures he described as “a new border demarcation” that would separate the Jordan Valley from the rest of the governorate.
“This is an annexation process,” he said. “As a result, we will be left without borders, without water, and without Palestine’s food basket, and will lose approximately 190,000 dunams of land.”
Al-Asaad echoed those warnings, saying Israel’s plans amount to de-facto annexation.
“The new settlement plan, under which the occupation forces intend to establish an apartheid separation wall, will separate the Jordan Valley from Tubas governorate and confiscate areas estimated at hundreds of thousands of dunams,” he said. “This constitutes a plan to annex the Jordan Valley.”
He warned the project would inflict severe political, economic and agricultural losses, undermine prospects for a Palestinian state and isolate Tubas from its eastern border with Jordan under 12 km of Israeli control.
By Dec. 12, around 1,000 dunams of Palestinian land have been reportedly confiscated. The UN Human Rights Office described Israel’s military road project as “another step towards the progressive fragmentation of the West Bank.”
“This is the most fertile land in the West Bank and the road is likely going to separate Palestinian communities from each other and the Palestinian farmers in Tubas from … land they own on the other side of the planned barrier,” said Ajith Sunghay, head of the OHCHR’s office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Immediately after the seizure orders were issued, Al-Asaad said, local authorities submitted an initial objection through the Northern Jordan Valley file and the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, collected powers of attorney and land deeds, and coordinated with land departments to document ownership.
“We continue to work on submitting objections through attorney Tawfiq Jabarin,” he added, reiterating that curfews and military operations severely limited their ability to complete the legal file.
Etkes, however, dismissed the objection process as meaningless, saying Israel’s judiciary would reject the appeals.
Still, Tubas residents say they will continue to resist. Al-Asaad said officials plan to internationalize the issue, urging the Palestinian Foreign Ministry to organize tours for diplomats and raise the case in international forums.
“We will mobilize local and international media to expose the danger of a plan that would seize half the governorate’s land and destroy the two-state solution,” he said.
IN NUMBERS:
• 188 Palestinians killed in occupation-related violence in the West Bank since January 2025.
• 45 Children accounted for nearly a quarter of the above-mentioned victims.
(Source: UNRWA)
Jabarin, a Palestinian lawyer and human rights activist representing landowners, submitted an initial objection in late November, according to the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper.
He argued that Jordan already shares a secure border with the Jordan Valley and that an internal wall would not prevent arms smuggling.
He said Palestinian communities are the ones who need protection from repeated settler attacks.
The developments in Tubas come amid a broader West Bank escalation following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel from Gaza and the devastating Israeli military retaliation.
Israel has sharply restricted movement, erecting new checkpoints and sealing off communities.
Since January, Israeli forces have intensified operations, killing dozens and displacing tens of thousands. The campaign began in Jenin refugee camp on Jan. 21, dubbed “Operation Iron Wall,” and expanded to Tulkarem and Nur Shams, displacing at least 32,000 people in January and February alone, according to UN figures.
Human Rights Watch said on Nov. 20 that Israel’s forced expulsions in West Bank refugee camps amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity — allegations Israel denies.
The UN says large-scale operations in Jenin and Tubas governorates affected more than 95,000 Palestinians between Nov. 25 and Dec. 1.
All of this has unfolded alongside accelerated settlement expansion and rising settler violence.
So far this year, OCHA has documented 1,680 settler attacks across more than 270 communities — an average of five per day — with the olive harvest season marked by widespread assaults on farmers, trees, and agricultural infrastructure.
In a landmark decision in July 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is unlawful.
The Court also ruled that Israel must “immediately and completely cease all new settlement activities, evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers.”
UN experts in 2025 referred to this advisory opinion to criticize ongoing settlement expansions and military operations as violations of international law.
