“When colonists pepper-sprayed, the baby stopped breathing. I was afraid he would die in my hands”
Again, reality dictates our deeds on the spur of the moment. As we were planning to visit others in Masafer Yatta, we heard and saw what took place last night at Wadi Jheish near Susiya – an extremely harsh attack at the Dagamin family home. We came with Nassar Nawaja’a, a B’Tselem field researcher. We picked him up at his Susiya home, without him we wouldn’t have found our way…
Everything stretches between Yatta and Susiya. On our way we pass Wadi Rahim, which is Area B, and from there to Wadi Jheish, which is Area C. As we arrived, we saw a large blood stain on the ground, and children dragging a dead sheep to its burial site, apparently. Photographers and foreign TV correspondents were there, a car with smashed windows and badly damaged, and in the sheep pen – wounded sheep.
The horrors of the past night were obvious everywhere. I joined Nassar who was taking details from the family father. He said that yesterday, Monday night, the dogs barked at 11 p.m. Waking up, they saw someone breaking the glass door and trying to get his hand in. Apparently, that person was trying to pepper-spray the whole family, parents and four children.
7 masked colonists? They came, broke up the car, smashed the security cameras, went to the sheep pen, slaughtered 3 sheep and injured another two. They said they poked the sheep’s eyes. I cannot look at the sheep.
“The children began to choke from the pepper gas and we needed to take them to hospital.
As we arrived, the baby – merely half a year old – was left at home, his lungs damaged and inflamed by inhaling the pepper spray. The women are at home, naturally upset.”
“What good does talking do”, they tell Nassar. “How would that help?” Then they turn to me saying they’re afraid the situation will only get worse. “What have the babies and children done? And the sheep? And we, what have we done? Why are we attacked?”
The are right, I can only be ashamed, feel their pain.
“How long were they here?” I ask.
“3-5 minutes of destruction, no more. Then they ran away.”
The police and army came 20 minutes later, took the cameras, took testimony and left. We have already heard that five persons were arrested. Interesting why they suddenly stopped and publicized this incident of all the others so similar to others in the area.
Apparently, they wish to create a different kind of image of “taking care of things”. We’ll see if that is really the case, what will actually happen.
From “Haaretz”, Matan Golan, 23.12.25 (in Hebrew):
https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2025-12-23/ty-article-magazine/.premium/0000019b-4bf9-d866-abff-7bf92d040000
Location Description
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
MuhammadFeb-24-2026South Hebron Hill, Beit Hagai: Paving an internal security road
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Susiya
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Susiya The Palestinian area lies between the settlement of Susya and a military base. The residents began to settle in areas outside the villages in the 1830s and lived in caves, tents and sukkot. To this day they maintain a traditional lifestyle and their livelihood is based on agriculture and herding. Until the 1948 war, the farmers cultivated areas that extended to the Arad area. As a result of the war, a significant portion of their land left on the Israeli side was lost. After the 1967 war and the Israeli occupation, military camps were established in the area, fire zones and nature reserves were declared, and the land area was further reduced. The Jewish settlement in Susya began in 1979. Since then, there has been a stubborn struggle to remove the remains of Palestinian residents who refuse to leave their place of birth and move to nearby town Yatta. With the development of a tourist site in Khirbet Susya in the late 1980s (an ancient synagogue), dozens of families living in caves in its vicinity were deported. In the second half of the 1990s, a new form of settlement developed in the area - shepherds' farms of individual settlers. This phenomenon increased the tension between the settlers and the original, Palestinian residents, and led to repeated harassment of the residents of the farms towards the Palestinians. At the same time, demolition of buildings and crop destruction by security forces continued, as well as water and electricity prevention. In the Palestinian Susya, as in a large part of the villages of the southern Hebron Mountains, there is no running water, but the water pipe that supplies water to the Susya Jewish settlement passes through it. Palestinians have to buy expensive water that comes in tankers. Solar electricity is provided by a collector system, installed with donation funds. But the frequent demolitions in the villages do not spare water cisterns or the solar panels and power poles designed to transfer solar electricity between the villages. Updated April 2021, Anat T.
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