Masafer Yatta: settlers abuse and intimidate the Palestinians
The situation in all of the occupied territories has worsened greatly and all the villages are blocked with checkpoints. We decided to bring crates of food to the two families we visited. It turned out to be direly necessary.
On road 317, west of the Asael outpost , stands a yellow metal shed, sporting an Israeli flag, containing a vehicle. It’s a new outpost no. 1. Another kilometer further down, stood new outpost no. 2.
Two giant boulders block the main entrance to the village of Sha’b al–Butum. We entered with the jeep and took an unpaved route, barely passable, reaching the home of Mohammad and Laila Jabarin.
Laila and two of her sons were home, and she pointed to every nook and cranny where the settlers of Avigail left their mark (this is a settlers outpost only some few hundred meters from the house).
This is what she told us:
A day before yesterday, around 2:30 p.m., 15 settlers from Avigail, wearing army uniforms, broke into the house. There were five family members at home at the time. The settlers ordered them to place their hands behind their backs and from 2:30 p.m. until 5 p.m. forced them to sit and not move. All the while they ran a wild vandal rampage inside the house and out. In the kitchen they threw to the floor flour and sugar, cut up the Palestinians’ clothes to pieces (so they have nothing to wear now), broke a window through which one sees the Avigail outpost. They cut up the pipes that run (expensive) water from the water tank, and poisoned the well. The solar panels were smashed. The pigeon and chicken coops were broken and the fowl flew in every direction. About 30 young grapevines were uprooted. The water pump was stolen.
Now there is no water, no electricity, no clothes, no food, no life.
Son Muhanned and his father Mohammad were beaten up and needed medical care, which they received at a Yatta clinic later on.
Laila adds that they were made to stand in the sun by the cucumber patch and when she wished to take a drink from a bottle she was holding, they poured out the water adding curses – “daughter of a bitch”, “whore”.
Son Shadi owns a knife he uses for work in the farmyard that supplies them with vegetables. The settlers said to Laila that this knife is used to kill soldiers.
Worst of all, before leaving the settlers left a live rifle bullet on the gas stove, as an unequivocal threat to the Palestinians’ fate.
At night Mohammad, Laila and the children joined our friend Yishak Jabarin’s home, not far away. There were also international volunteers there (IOS).
At about 8 p.m. settlers came there too, wearing army uniforms. They shackled the men and forced them to lie on the ground. The women and children were placed in rooms. They threatened to destroy Yishak’s house (a residential compound of several families). They threatened Laila not to dare return home or they would destroy it.
Yishak and Mohammad drove to lodge a complaint at the Kiryat Arba police station. This morning at 6 a.m., the day of our visit, they went back home. At night they will return to Yishak.
I ask about their friend Abu Hani and she tells me that 3 weeks ago settlers broke into his area, demolishing the room in which he lived with his wife. He moved to Yatta. Heavy-hearted we drove to Yishak, who added that the tires of his car were punctured.
On our way back we ran into our wonderful friends of the Villages Group – Ariella, Ehud and Yair.
Mohammad updates us that he finally managed to talk on the phone with Abu Safi who was expelled with his family from Wadi Radim to Samu’a. It was a short talk but we heard from him at long last.
This visit was different. We left feeling terrible. It’s hard to convey our feelings in words.
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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