South Hebron Hills, Simia
We drove to Simia,
A small village on Route 60 on the other side of the road from the town of Samua.
Two weeks ago, the villagers (who are also active in the “Combatants for Peace”) decided to establish on their own a school for the 30 small children in the village, who risk every morning crossing this busy road to the school in Samua.
After two children were injured on the road in recent months and their requests for a permit were not answered, they did so themselves. Immediately, the security forces and the civiil administration arrived and destroyed everything and confiscated cars: “Here is the Land of Israel and you are forbidden to build anything here,” an IDF officer told them.
K. Tells us in fluent Hebrew the story of the last weeks (https://youtu.be/1BZqGQJiS7U) שs of yesterday:
The school is held in two small tents, tables and chalk, chairs and some teachers are trying to teach them. On the blackboard the teacher writes the meaning of the word meaning “dafke” (in spite). She draws a map and a flag and the children write. The tents are dismantled by the residents at the end of the school day and are rebuilt in the morning.
The IDF patrols early in the morning or at night to prevent them rebuilding.
The people are determined to build the school. The speaker has spoken fluently about their desire for peace and a life of mutual respect. “Little children who meet the Israelis as destroyers, what adults they will grow up to be”? He asks.
We also ask.
We promised to be in constant contact with them.
And I remember the verse from the Haggadah : “When they torture him, he will multiply and break out …” And … Nevertheless, despite everything “…..
Then we went to Hursa.
There, as we know, Israel built in the heart of the village a pillbox and a checkpoint to monitor the road to Negohot. In the vicinity of the village next to the village’s Divan, a military compound has been established, and sometimes flying checkpoints are erected. Everyone is checked and this creates traffic jams and harms the fabric of life of thousands of people in order to protect a few dozen settlers.
“They make life miserable for us day and night and we do not understand why,” they tell us. Feelings of shame and despair fill us at the end of the shift.
That is how we end are shift….that is what we feel.
South Hebron Hills
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South Hebron Hills
South Hebron Hills is a large area in the West Bank's southern part.
Yatta is a major city in this area: right in the border zone between the fertile region of Hebron and its surroundings and the desert of the Hebron Hills. Yatta has about 64,000 inhabitants.
The surrounding villages are called Masafer Yatta (Yatta's daughter villages). Their inhabitants subsist on livestock and agriculture. Agriculture is possible only in small plots, especially near streams. Most of the area consists of rocky terraces.Since the beginning of the 1980s, many settlements have been established on the agricultural land cultivated by the Palestinians in the South Hebron Hills region: Carmel, Maon, Susia, Masadot Yehuda, Othniel, and more. Since the settlements were established and Palestinians cultivation areas have been reduced; the residents of the South Hebron Hills have been suffering from harassment by the settlers. Attempts to evict and demolish houses have continued, along with withholding water and electricity. The military and police usually refrain from intervening in violent incidents between settlers and Palestinians do not enforce the law when it comes to the investigation of extensive violent Jewish settlers. The harassment in the South Hebron Hills includes attacking and attempting to burn residential tents, harassing dogs, harming herds, and preventing access to pastures.
There are several checkpoints in the South Hebron Hills, on Routes 317 and 60. In most of them, no military presence is apparent, but rather an array of pillboxes monitor the villages. Roadblocks are frequently set up according to the settlers and the army's needs. These are located at the Zif Junction, the Dura-al Fawwar crossing, and the Sheep Junction at the southern entrance to Hebron.
Updated April 2022
Smadar BeckerMay-31-2026The new outpost next to Qawawis, on Highway 317
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