A-Rakiz - On the pretext of throwing stones, Sheikh Sa'id, the amputee, was taken by the army
We went to a-Rakiz to visit again Sheikh Sa’id, the brave man who lost a leg and continues to face the violence and stupidity of settlers and security forces. As always, he is insightful and wise. He told us about several weeks of quiet that followed an incident on Saturday, May 2, at 14:00.
Two settlers from Amichai Shiloh’s group, which sits on the hill opposite Sha’ab al-Butum (about which we have written many times), arrived and began throwing stones in the fields. The Palestinians called the police, that did not come. The settlers, as usual, quickly called the army, claiming that the Sheikh was throwing stones at them. The flock of sheep – about 40 head—reached Sheikh Sa’id’s olive trees and immediately began eating from them. Israeli volunteers were there and began filming. The soldiers – five of them – forbade them to film. They filmed anyway. The soldiers also demanded ID cards from the Israelis and from Sheikh Sa’id. He refused. They asked for his name, and when he answered, all his details appeared on their screen.
Sheikh Sa’id removed the prosthetic from his leg to remind the soldiers of the incident in which he lost it. As a mark of protest he threw it aside. One of the settlers asked where the prosthetic was. “You know,” the Sheikh answered, “you surely remember that a year ago the security coordinator of Mitzpeh Avigayil shot me and I lost my leg.
They fell silent.
Then a soldier said: “Now you threw stones at the settler’s sheep. We need to take you for questioning at the base in Susiya.” The Sheikh said: “If I did something, take me to the Kiryat Arba police.”
A Druze policeman, Rustum, who was there, said: “I don’t want to take you for questioning. The army wants to.”
Sheikh Sa’id said he could not stand or walk without the prosthetic. Three soldiers helped him up and took him in a pickup truck to Susiya, his eyes covered with a black bag that painfully pressed into his skin. After an hour they removed the cover and connected him by phone with a captain from Kiryat Arba. Sheikh Sa’id recognized his voice. It was the tough officer who had spoken to him when he was in Soroka Hospital after the amputation a year earlier.
“You and your son threw stones again,” the captain said. “You’re wrong,” the Sheikh answered. “We didn’t throw stones. But if you’re judging me, judge Bodenheimer too—the one who shot at my leg. You didn’t arrest him at all.”
The captain replied: “That’s something else. We have a video showing you throwing stones.”
Sheikh Sa’id told him that volunteers had videos showing the opposite. The captain said they would go to Susiya and decide what happened. The Sheikh replied: “I’m not afraid of any of you. Do whatever you want.”
The phone call ended. They blindfolded him again, and he remained like that until midnight, sitting on a broken chair, swaying from side to side. At midnight they told him to go home. After he reminded them he couldn’t walk, they drove him to the entrance of Tuwani and to a place supposedly near his home. He told them he didn’t live there. They took him again and dumped him somewhere else. One soldier said, “Let’s take him home.” Another said, “No, we’ll leave him here” (about half a kilometer from his house). The soldiers returned his phone and he phoned his children to come and fetch him, and they came and took him home. Since then, things have been quiet.
A week ago, the High Court ruled that the Palestinians who fled from a-Rakiz must be allowed to return to their land. These are 10 families who abandoned their land out of fear of the settlers. The settlers have already placed caravans there and cut down about 70 of A.A.’s olive trees, and they roam the area freely with their sheep.
“The settlers have their own law,” Sheikh Sa’id says. “They ignore the law.”
Location Description
Mesafer Yatta
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This is happening in Fire Area 918 in the South Hebron Hills
On the eve of Remembrance Day (the day before Israel Independence Day), 4th May, 2022, the Israeli High Court decided on the transfer and expulsion of residents from 8 Palestinian communities in the area of Masafar Yata in the South Hebron Hills. Residents of the villages have been living under the threat of demolition, evacuation and expropriation since the IDF issued evacuation orders in 1999 based on the 1980s proclamation of their area of residence as a firing zone for IDF drills. None of the nearby settlements were included in this zone. The Masafer Yata Palestinian villages retain a special lifestyle and ancient agricultural culture. They also posess a clear historical documentation that testifies to a Palestinian settlement in this area, generations before the establishment of Israel, long ago in the caves and at later times outside them.
Evacuating residents from the area means destroying these historic villages and leaving entire families (about 2,000 people, children, adults, and the elderly) homeless. This is contrary to international law.
In June 2022, a firing drill started, and life became harder.
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Sha'ab al-Butum
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This is one of the small Palestinian communities in Masafer Yatta in the southern Hebron Hills, near the settlement of Mitzpe Avigail.
Since the outbreak of the October 7, 2023 war, settler violence against residents has escalated greatly, as in the entire Palestinian community. This violent conduct receives full backing from the state and full cooperation from the IDF. The goal is to make the lives of the Palestinian residents miserable and make them abandon and leave.
The population consists of mostly shepherds who peacefully seek to cultivate the land and graze their sheep, whom the settlers treat as a dangerous enemy. They prohibit them from any movement related to herding sheep and cultivating the land and harm everything: trampling crops, breaking olive trees, smuggling herds, scaring shepherds, conducting wild searches of houses, shouting, cursing and threatening - at all hours of the day. "We are Besieged, but will not move from our land," says Lila G. New settlements are springing up around them. At first it's a bus or a truck that turns into residential buildings, on top of which every week more residential buildings and animal sheds are added. With the open encouragement of the current government, Jewish terrorism is raising its head, with authority and permission. The settlers have received army uniforms and weapons, and no one is stopping them. The police, who are supposed to protect the Palestinians from the settlers' riots, sometimes respond to calls for help, but in practice they don't do much more than provide them with a report, and they are required to go and file a complaint in Kiryat Arba Settlemnt police station . Though the settlers' identities are known, they are !never arrested.
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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
Muhammad D.Jun-7-2026A stone placed by settlers on the road leading to the Thiel family's territory in Rahwa
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