Sha'ab al Butum - Mitzpe Yair settlers came with the herd on the fields of the Palestinians and destroyed everything, in front of the police
We travelled on very bad paths (as usual). Luckily there is also a suitable 4×4 vehicle which is sometimes available. That, after every paved road was blocked by the IDF. The IDF of Major General Fuchs. We went so as to speak with the Jabarin families who live in the neighbourhood of Mitzpe Yair and Mitzpe Avigayil and those new ones who are also trying to drive the Palestinians out.
We brought groceries to two areas where families with 50 children live.
The houses of 3 families were destroyed. M. says that 4 years ago they received a demolition order. They were not told when the order would be carried out. A lawyer dealt with their appeal. The people who barely make a living paid him thousands of shekels. The court did not accept the appeal and 10 days ago the lawyer informed them of the decision, again without a date for the demolition. So yesterday at 9 in the morning the forces and within an hour the bulldozers destroyed the houses of 3 families and once again they were left with the miserable feelings that they had tried to improve their living conditions to no avail. The grandmother shows me the destroyed shower and the room where she made cheese and labane. Children are hiding in the shadow of the ruin. Of course, the area was declared a closed military area so that anyone who wanted to help were not allowed to approach.
When Palestinians from Yatta came to help, they had gas grenades at them.
“We didn’t resist,” they tell me, “Because we didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“We are trapped with no way out,” says a man over 70 years old.
“I was born here and we don’t have a voice,” he answers when I ask how long they have been here.
The pictures of the destruction are horrifying and shameful. They later sent us pictures of the demolition. Un fortunately, there are no photos of the houses before the destruction. But the photos of the ruins showing children who have this kind of childhood should make us think of what kind of people they will grow up to be and what will be their feelings and dreams.
Of course we will also be in touch with them.
Then we went to the family compound of Ismail, Ishak Jabarin’s brother. Even from their scrap yard, the settlement, Avigayil , can be seen expanding and thriving, a stone’s throw away.
The man, with his kind eyes, takes me to a small hatchery and shows me the chicks that have hatched from the eggs. And then to the vegetable garden where vegetables, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, cabbage and cabbage are already ripening.
It makes me happy to see the stubbornness to live like this in this difficult place, and he goes to the bed of cucumbers, fills his palms with fresh little ones and hands them to me. Even next to the small buildings that are used for living, the geranium blooms and from the vine that covers the entrance, clusters of still green grapes hang. The nothing they have is so well maintained and heartbreaking. We also brought them groceries.
Ishak’s son says that yesterday settlers came from Mitzpe Yair with a herd of about 150 head and went into the barley and wheat fields. Even in the afternoon they came and ate everything that they had sown for human and animal food, even tender olive seedlings, leaving no trace. Also, today at 6.30 they arrived.
The police who are called do not try to enter, just observe.
In the photos they gave us, we see the most moral army in the world guarding the settlers and not preventing them in any way from engaging in this work of destruction. You can also see that they came to steal even the stones from the terraces built by the Palestinians. The police came, saw and of course they didn’t arrest anyone. Interrogated them for a few minutes and let everyone go their way…
The settler is also seen walking away from the tractor so as not to be identified with the force of destruction that came to load the stones from the terraces in his cart. He returns to this as the police leave. A. says again: “The army allows the settlers to do as they wish.” 150 dunams of everything grown for their livelihood will be eaten by the settlers’ sheep.
“A week ago,” he says, “3 people came on motorcycles, some of them in uniforms and with masks on their faces (the sign of recognition of a soldier who has been drafted into the army) and told us: ‘Get out of here, otherwise we will kill you like we killed the Hamas in Gaza,’ but we have nowhere to go, we will not move from here”.
They see how the police act, they see no point in calling the police…
Finally, he tells us about a woman in his family who lives nearby. There they suffer from the settlers and constantly suffer aggression and harassment and there the volunteers sleep all the time. There you constantly see Mitzpe Abigail’s military security coordinator watching them through binoculars. From there you constantly hear: “We will expel you the same way we expelled you from Zanuta.
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
Muhammad D.May-13-2025Susiya - at Ahmad and Halima Nawaja'a
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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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