Sinjil – The settler Michael Shemla’s flock grazing in the territory of the Maqam
What’s in the photo? A flock of sheep chewing grass in a primeval landscape, against the background of blossoming almond trees. The photo does not reveal the fact that the flock belongs to the violent colonist Michael Shemla of the “Nahal Shilo” outpost, not to the Palestinians of Sinjil, legal owners of the land.
The flock, the two shepherdesses and two dogs situated themselves this time around and inside the site sanctified by the Sinjil villagers, Maqam Abu Al ‘Uf. We climbed up there, four MahsomWatch members accompanied by our friend Ayed of Sinjil. The shepherdesses were amazed by the strange guests that came with an indigenous Palestinian, and alerted their boss, Michael Shemla by phone – he hurried to show up and began to question who and what we were. The encounter was very tense. One of the two dogs came back and crossed the distance with a stone in his mouth. Our calm was important to the Palestinians with us. This was obvious and also discussed afterward. During this encounter, a father with his three children joined us and skillfully organized a campfire with water for tea.
Shemla: “Where are you from?” “What brings you here?” “Are you friends of Ayed and Marwah?”
After I answered that we are from Tel Aviv and that Ayed and Marwah who joined us are our friends, and that “we investigate Palestinian tradition and religious sites”, he asked: “Are you familiar with Chapter 17 of the Book of Judges, regarding Micha?” I answered “Yes, I’ve read about him.”
“His inn was under this structure” he explained, so we could understand who has the original claim to this place.
Now, writing this report, I tried to understand which Micha was discussed in the said chapter and found a rather actual character: A thief called Michiyahu returned the money he stole from his mother, and to reward him she ordered gold from a jeweler, to create a figurine for her son’s private sanctuary. He then appoints one of his sons as a priest. This chapter as well as the succeeding one, states that “At that time, there was no king in Israel and every man did as he pleased.”
Back to our days: The meager farmland remaining for the Sinjil villagers is divided into numerous tiny beautiful plots – in which the occupation regime forbids them the digging water holes, laying water pipes or building a shed that would protect them from the heat or the rain.
We first came to Maqam Abu Al Uf exactly three years ago, on February 22, 2020. It stands at the heart of Sinjil’s farmland, on a hill overlooking the entire town climbing on the opposite hill. There we met Marwah (a unique name meaning ‘the one who returns’) – a retired sports teacher and farmer who works his land every day. He saw us from afar, heard our Hebrew and was certain that we were colonists. Still, he decided to come – “Why should I fear? These are our lands”, he said in fluent Hebrew. “Who was Abu Al Uf?” we asked him. “He was a good friend of the Prophet Mohammad”, came the answer. When he was a 12-13 years old boy, he told us, he used to come to the Maqam every Thursday: “We would light candles, pray, make our requests. People would come from Sinjil, Turmus Aya and Nablus. The main road between Nablus and Ramallah used to pass here. To this day I come up here, rest, and pray at the Maqam. Now colonists visit the site. They even steal ancient stones from the structures here.”
Since then we have been following the processes of taking over Sinjil lands and attempts to expropriate the Muslim Maqam, forcing it into the Jewish narrative and passing it over to the colonists who frequent it: At times with their sheep who defecate in the holy place, and at others for group visits and refreshments.
On September 7, 2022 we reached a 10-dunam area of Palestinian farmland which the colonists’ bulldozers flattened and denied Palestinian access. We joined the Sinjil municipal vehicle and held video interviews there. Exiting the area up a narrow track, Michael Shemla’s vehicle blocked our way and forced the municipality’s skilled driver to back up further and further down the slope. It was very frightening and left no room for mistaking the colonist’s intent.
The next day, Shemla attacked and wounded Palestinians who reached the land after receiving permission to do so from the Civil Administration at Beit El (we received video documentation of the attacks and testimonies of injured Palestinians).
General background: The Maqam and the Sinjil farmlands are surrounded by two large colonist outposts – “Giv’at Har’el” and “Giv’at Haro’e”, two of the ten outposts whose turning into full-fledged colonies was announced by the government. The two outposts originate from the huge colonies of Shilo, Eli and Ma’ale Levona. Michael Shemla’s farm, adjacent to an old Israeli army base, is the late addition that faithfully serves its mission – to injure, sow despair and dispossess the Palestinian landowners.
Concluding: Maqam Abu Al Uf was not included in our survey since at the time we did not know how active and determined the colonists attempts are to take it over. (It is not even included in the area of a colony, firing zone or nature reserve – the three categories detailed in our survey). Now, as the harsh picture becomes clear, I hope we can dedicate a special issue to it, including video interviews of September 7, 2022, and Palestinian videos of September 8, 2022, showing the cultural, historical and ritual background of Maqam Abu Al Uf.
Sinjil
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Singil
A town with a Maqam
The origin of the town's name is Raymond IV of Saint-Gilles, nicknamed the Count of Toulouse who established a Crusader fortress there in 1198. There is evidence of a settlement in the place as early as the Early Bronze Age.
On the mountain across from the town of Singil, east of Ramallah, the agricultural lands of its ten thousand residents spread out – The beautiful built-up terraces were renovated during the quiet period of the Corona pandemic. Each person and his fields on the way to the hilltop, location of the holy site, Maqam Abu Al ‘Uf, one the prophet Mohammad’s companions. Singil lands amount to 18 thousand dunams. Of these, 9,500 dunams are area C - where the Civil Administration forbids digging a water hole, laying pipes or building a shed to protect against the heat of the day or rain.
Maqam Abu Al ‘Uf stands in the heart of Singil's agricultural lands, on a hill from which the entire town is overlooked. It is an ancient and beautiful place that contains all the elements of Palestinian life in the past, which they embrace with longing. But they are afraid to repair and clean the site with a double fear of the settlers and the civil administration, since the site is in area C, the settlers are trying to appropriate the Muslim site to the Jewish narrative and transfer it to their control. They come and litter site with ship excrement or set up tables for a parties there.
Everything is beautiful, but there is a thorn in it: the Israeli occupation! In January 1978, a group of settlers settled near the village lands, under the guise of an archaeological dig camp in the nearby Tel Shiloh. Today Singil and its lands are surrounded by the huge settlements: Shiloh, Eli, Ma'ale Levona and their outposts: Giv’at Har’el, Giv’at Ha-Ro’eh (which the government approved to become a settlements) that more and more of the lands of Singil are annexed by one trick or another to the settlements. Another addition is the violent outpost called "Nahal Shiloh" from which a settler to attacks the Palestinian farmers, attempts to destroy terraces and send his herds to the Palestinian fields. Adjacent to the outpost is an Israeli army.
Of the 10,000 residents who live in the town, 400 people work in Israel and depend on work permits. They leave at three in the morning through four exits manned by soldiers from the nearby army camp who are held up by ID checks. 12,000 residents left over the years to other countries, mainly to the United States.
As part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, over the years there have been dozens of incidents of mutual violence between the residents of the village and Jewish residents of the area and the IDF forces. Including a settlers’ pogrom in May 2023.
Immediately after the horrific massacre carried out by the Hamas organization in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, all the village entrances were blocked with stones and piles of dirt. There is no going out and no coming except for one checkpoint in the direction of Ramallah where a military guard allows one out of ten applicants to leave.
Updated October 2023
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Turmus Aya
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Turmus Aya is a beautiful and well-kept Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bira governorate, located in the Shiloh Valley, about 22 km north of Ramallah. Near Highway 60 at an altitude of about 732 m. In 2016, 4,781 residents lived in the town. After the 2nd intifada in 2001, hundreds immigrated to the US, but they come in the summer to visit their families and live in the nice houses they built.
Israel expropriated 752 dunams of the town's land for the establishment of the Shiloh settlement, in 1978, and another 372 dunams for the establishment of the Shebot Rachel settlement in 1992. According to the Oslo Agreement, the built-up area of TAos Aya was classified as area B. This area constitutes 64.7% of the town's land, and the rest, 35.3%, is area C.
Starting in 2015, the town's residents often suffer from harassment from the settlers of the Adi Ad outpost, which include the uprooting and cutting of olive trees, the burning of wheat fields and the spraying of anti-Netzka inscriptions.
On June 21, 2023, dozens of young people from outposts and surrounding settlements carried out a pogrom in broad daylight after the funeral of the victims of the attack that occurred two days earlier at the gas station in the settlement of Eli. The attack took place after the Israel Defense Forces' invasion of Jenin and the killing of innocents in the process - an invasion that took place after a previous event... and so on, deep into the non-stop blood equation that is always presented in Israel as terror attacks without context. They set fire to about 60 cars and about 30 houses with their occupants and threw stones, fire grenades and even shot from guns.The IDF soldiers watched the attack but didn't intervene. A villager was killed by soldier fire. Only 3 settlers were arrested after a few days, but charges have not yet been filed against them.
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