Sha'ab al-Butum - armed and violent farm boys are terrorizing
Sha’ab al-Butum
We are traveling via Highway 60 and there is nothing new regarding the checkpoints:
Samu’ South – 4 soldiers checking every vehicle, entering and exiting, the checkpoint is open.
Dahariya North – The checkpoint is closed. Vehicles are parked on both sides of the checkpoint. This is known as back-to-back. This is the way that goods are brought to the area. Pedestrians cross on foot to the other side and a private vehicle or taxi drives them to their destination.
Karma – The checkpoint is open.
Abda – The checkpoint is closed at both entrances.
Qilqis – Closed.
Sheep crossing and the checkpoint towards Yatta, closed. Towards Hebron, open.
At the gas station, we met N. to transfer money to him from an Israeli company. He is from Beit Awa and talks about the worsening situation since October 7. A gas station attendant tells us that the situation is worse since the war. Sometimes soldiers in a nearby pillbox throw stun grenades when pedestrians between Dura and Fawwar do not walk on a dirt road but on the asphalt. As a reminder, both at the entrance to Dura and Fawwar, which is opposite, there are checkpoints that do not allow entry with a vehicle.
We continued on our way to the Zif junction, where we stopped to buy groceries for the Jabarin family.
The entrance to Yatta is open, but 6 armed soldiers are checking those entering and leaving.
Leila went to the doctor in Yatta. I ask how she gets there and Muhammad explains. She walked half an hour to the road (317) and from there a family member’s car picked her up.
The school is closed and the children are at home. The reason for this is that school is only open four days a week.
Muhammad tells of a boy who herds the sheep of the settler, Amichai Shilo, from the farm-outpost next to their land, who comes twice a day, morning and evening, to their living area, to the entrance to their house, cursing and shouting: “Get out of here, this is ours.” Armed with a gun and a knife, he roams freely. Sometimes the police come, but do not respond.
Last week, a settler, using a chainsaw, cut down about 40 olive trees. In the coming years, there will be no fruit or oil. They are being closed in on all sides, and they are barely allowed to breathe. They are farmers and shepherds and grow olive groves, this is their world and their livelihood.
We were invited to a family meal that included wonderful stuffed vegetables.
Shortly before we left the village, Fares Samamra, one of the Zanuta exiles, tells Muhammad in a storm of emotion that Yinon and Elyashiv, two settlers who own outpost farms, accompanied by the army, arrested his son, Isma’il, and took him from his home. He asked us to inform Attorney Qamar about the incident, and we did so. She contacted him.
In retrospect, it turned out that Isma’il was taken, with a flannel tied over his eyes and his hands handcuffed, to the Otniel base. He was interrogated for 4 hours on the charge that the family’s sheep were encroaching on the territory of Elyashiv Nahum’s Yehuda Farm, which is of course a lie. After the interrogation, he was released.
Once again, we are witnessing the close connection between the settlers and the army. This is government policy.
#ThisIsTheOccupation
Location Description
Dura Al-Fawwar Junction
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Junction on Route 60: west - the town of El Dura, east - the Al Fawwar refugee camp. There is a manned pillbox at the junction. From time to time the army sets up flying checkpoints at the entrance to El Fawwar and Al Dura. Al-Fawwar is a large refugee camp (7,000 inhabitants in 2007) established in 1949 to accommodate Palestinian refugees from Be'er Sheva and Beit Jubrin and environs. There are many incidents of stone-throwing. In the vicinity of the pillbox there are excellent agricultural areas, Farmers set up stalls adjacent to the plots close to the road. In recent months the civil administration has set up dirt embankments thereby blocking access to the stalls, and making it impossible for the farmers to sell their vegetables. Updated April 2021, Michal T.
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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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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
Daphna JungMar-16-2025Simia: Farhan and his wife
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Zanuta
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Zanuta was a small rural Palestinian locality until its demolition. It was situated in the space around the town Dahariya in the South Hebron Hills, about a ten-minute ride from Meitar Checkpoint. There are documented remains of a large Byzantine settlement in the area. Since the Ottoman (Turkish Empire) period (1516-1917) Zanuta was documented as a locality of shepherds and farmers who live in the remains of the ancient structures and the residential caves near them.
Two individual ranches of colonists were created next to Zanuta: Meitarim (of the colonist Yinon Levi) to the east, and Yehudah (of the colonist Elyashiv Nachum) to the north. Endless attacks, harassments and attempt to chase away the Zanuta villagers have originated in these two outposts.
Until the expulsion, four families lived in the village: A-Samama, Al-Tel, Al Batat, and Al-Qaisia. Farming constituted their main economic activity and employed most of the villagers. The total area of the village is about 12,000 dunams, of which about 3,000 are tended, mostly with field crops.
This village has never had a master plan that would legitimize construction permits. The Civil Administration claimed it was too small and the distance to the next town, Dahariya, too great. For this reason, the Israeli authorities pressured the villagers to leave. The colonists did the job for them.
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Zif Junction
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Zif Junction located on the crossroads that directs towards Road 356 to Yata. Yata is the district city of the southern Hebron Mountains. Usually, this junction is open to traffic. The nearby pillbox is unmanned. But the army and police are present occasionally, sometimes setting up a checkpoint and sometimes detaining residents from the big city. Often, the Israeli policemen inspect vehicles and distribute driving reports to Palestinian vehicles. s
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