Hebron, South Hebron Hills, Susiya
“You are not be be here”
A Givati soldier rushes towards us with a black kippa sticking out from under his beret. “You are not allowed here”, he says to Idris, who has come down from his home in Shuhada street to meet us at the spring next to the base which is being destroyed.
“Why?” we ask. “Because” is the answer by the soldier who has only been there a few days and has no idea of what he is doing except that Idris is a Palestinian.
“I have a blue ID card, I am an Israeli citizen”, says Idris and shows the soldiers his ID. Embarrassed and confused the soldier returns the ID and retreats.
There is no apartheid in Hebron, we are told. But we see with our own eyes what there is.
Idris came down for a few minutes only because of the Corona in the city so as to receive a donation for a widow with six children who has been left with nothing.
Hebron of the settlers is full of posters supporting Ben Gvir. It is now a double ghost city.
We went to meet Nasser Nawaj’a from Susiya. He is very active and participates and assists the residents of the area in their fight against the settlers who attack them all the time. This in addition to the demolition done by the Civil Administration and the army.
Everything has been reported and written in recent weeks… On Saturday, as was reported, there was a serious incident with a man wounded by settlers of Mitzpe Yair.
Nasser is busy on the phone all the time and barely turns to us.
It turns out that near Mount Amasa there is a settlement of َQaryut (Garian according to the locals). About 20 shepherds with a large flock of sheep were grazing there. They also started building a corral to keep the sheep. The civil administration arrived and claimed that because the Palestinians had crossed the Green Line, they confiscated 300 sheep and took them with trucks that they had brought with them. The question is wither they had any proof that the green line had been crossed. but who cares?…
The shepherds hurried to the place and began calling the flock with the sounds they know and as the sheep heard the whistles and various sounds they rushed to them. So the civil administration, probably not knowing how to do deal with the situation, said that they would not confiscate the sheep. But the Palestinians would have to pay the costs of what seems to be a completely unnecessary and maybe even illegal operation, the trucking and transportation expenses of 11,000 shekels. One of the shepherds, 19-year-old, was arrested anyway because the settlers claimed that they saw him picking up a stone. Nasser was busy all this time talking to lawyers about our case and attempting to release him from the court in Be’er Sheva.
When we arrived in Susiya we saw the Palestinian flags which has been hoisted and left when Netanyahu in a helicopter had visited there two days earlier for a ceremony which was supposed to be in honour of upgrading the antiquities site in Susiya (as stated in the invitation which Michal also received). Probably more a political gesture before the elections than a true ceremony.
There were a number of Palestinians demonstrating against him even though the entire area was declared a closed military area and there were also large forces. The Palestinians were not allowed out of their houses or into the area
Mosi Raz and Tamar Zandberg visited them that day.
There is no quiet there or no day without something unpleasant happening,
And we can only use our words and reports to support them.
Hebron
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According to Wye Plantation Accords (1997), Hebron is divided in two: H1 is under Palestinian Authority control, H2 is under Israeli control. In Hebron there are 170,000 Palestinian citizens, 60,000 of them in H2. Between the two areas are permanent checkpoints, manned at all hours, preventing Palestinian movement between them and controlling passage of permit holders such as teachers and schoolchildren. Some 800 Jews live in Avraham Avinu Quarter and Tel Rumeida, on Givat HaAvot and in the wholesale market.
Checkpoints observed in H2:
- Bet Hameriva CP- manned with a pillbox
- Kapisha quarter CP (the northern side of Zion axis) - manned with a pillbox
- The 160 turn CP (the southern side of Zion axis) - manned with a pillbox
- Avraham Avinu quarter - watch station
- The pharmacy CP - checking inside a caravan with a magnometer
- Tarpat (1929) CP - checking inside a caravan with a magnometer
- Tel Rumeida CP - guarding station
- Beit Hadassah CP - guarding station
Three checkpoints around the Tomb of the Patriarchs
Leah ShakdielApr-8-2025Hebron: A sign advertising a tempting real estate
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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 residentMay-12-2025A sheep carcass dumped by settler Shimon Atiya from the Shorashim farm near the school in Umm Qusa.
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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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