Qawais - At night the settlers come, knock on the door and almost break it, break security cameras and cut electrical cables
On Highway 317, after Susiya, we turn right onto a dirt road to visit Taleb Saqer Jibril in Qawawis. One hundred and twenty days ago, settlers established a new farm, including a solar roof, on his land, 100 metres from the cluster of Palestinian homes.
The visit begins as it often has lately: Muhammad unloads the donated food supplies we have brought, including vegetables he collects from shops in Laqiya.
We meet two American volunteers from ISM – International Solidarity Movement, who are staying with the families here for several months. One is an engineer who teaches at a college; the other is about to begin studying at a university in Cairo.
We have barely sat down in the Shig (hospitality tent) when two young religious settlers drive right past us, very close to the Shig, on a Ranger that makes an enormous noise. I cannot hold back and shout at them that they are sinning in the midst of the Ten Days of Repentance. Our hosts are pleased to see me shouting at the settlers; they, of course, cannot afford to do so themselves. They say that one of the young men is named Yehoyariv and that he is the son of the man who established the farm. We agree that honouring one’s parents is very important in both Judaism and Islam, but that in both religions, if a father tells his son to commit a crime, the son must not obey him.
At night, the settlers come and bang on the door, almost breaking it down. They break security cameras and cut electrical cables. Calling the police and the army does not help. They bring their flocks into the compound where the Palestinian families live and threaten the volunteers. When the families travel to Karmil to buy food, the settlers stop them and threaten to beat them.
All the men used to work in Israel. They have had to sell sheep from their flock to buy food, leaving them with only 60 sheep. Keeping them is difficult because their grazing land has been taken from them, so they must also buy feed for the sheep. The settlers steal everything—sheep and chickens—run over the dogs, and break their solar panels. They sleep in shifts so they can protect the water cistern, the people and their property. The children do not go to school in Sha’ab al-Butum because settlers beat them on the way.
Location Description
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
Timna OrevSep-24-2026Replacing flags on Highway 6
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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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