All the entrance roads to Hebron are now controlledA
Route 317
The agricultural dirt roads from the main road to the villages are blocked by piles of earth (for example in front of the village of Ma’in) – forcing the Palestinians to detour and making the journey longer. The main roads occupied by dirt are not blocked – there is an option to set up a mobile barrier.
Susiya:
Nasser received a visit from two women from the European Union who came with Yehuda of Breaking the Silence.
We were sitting in the yard of Wadha and Azzam. They try their best to cultivate an orchard in the rock holes but the local water well is barely enough to water the goats, and the purchased water is transported by truck and is very expensive. On the shaded balcony, where the summer beds are the couches for guests, Wadha nurtures a glorious potted garden.
Azzam tells about the harassment of the settlers: shots in the middle of the night in the direction of their dogs. Once a settler came on a horse at ten at night and harassed the dogs and the men sleeping in the summer at the entrance to the house. Once the carcass of a possibly poisoned calf was thrown because one of their dogs died of poisoning.
Umm al-Kheir:
We went to check the details about the video that was sent the day before in which the settlers from Carmel are seen marching through the small village.
The proximity between this modest village, which only recently had a few stone houses and a playground built there, and the houses of the settlement of Carmel is really troubling. Carmel surrounded itself with a double barbed wire fence, as if there was a border here, it has a water tower that allows for proper gardens, and next to it – a small and poor settlement. We confirm what was captured in the video – about fifty children accompanied by a military vehicle left Carmel marching and singing accompanied by musical instruments, all the way to the chicken farms across the road. When they passed through Umm al-Kheir they cursed its inhabitants while singing and dancing.
Route 60:
We found that the current policy of blockades is in force: all the entrance roads to Hebron are now controlled by the army – three soldiers with rifles pointed at the people are checking those leaving Hebron in the direction of road 60. This is the case at the Sheep Junction, in Qilqis and the southern exit in front of Beit Hagai. The inspection is strict, they check documents, peek into the vehicles and as a result long lines of cars are formed at the exit.
At the southern exit, a car and two women are detained. When I spoke to the soldiers, they claimed that they were terrorists on their way to an attack. When I asked to know how to identify terrorists, the soldier explained to me that one of them was denied entry due to previous convictions, and that the other had photos of martyrs and weapons on his phone. Definitive proof indeed.
South of Hebron, new guard booths manned by soldiers with drawn weapons appeared above the road. This is the case at the entrance to Deir Razih as well as at the Negohot junction.
Hakvasim (sheep) Junction
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One of the roadblocks (earthworks, rocks, concrete blocks or iron gates) that prevent transit of vehicles to Route 60 in the southern West Bank and block the southern entrance to Hebron. A manned pillbox supervises the place.
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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
A Palestinian residentJun-9-2025Fuqiqis - Settler boys arrive with a herd and harass family members
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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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Umm al-Kheir
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Umm al-Kheir
A Palestinian village in the southern Hebron governorate, populated by five families. The Palestinian residents settled there decades ago, after Israel expelled them from the Arad desert and purchased the land from the residents of the Palestinian village of Yatta. The village suffers from the violence of nearby Carmel settlers, from water shortage and is subject to frequent demolition of buildings by the Civil Administration.
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