South Hebron Hills - expanding settlements
The parking lot at the Meitar checkpoint was full, a routine of occupation that we had become accustomed to.
At Meitar a military jeep guards the intersection.
A huge and stunning villa is being sold in the settlement Otniel and the residents are busy with the elections for the head of the Mount Hebron Council. A completely normal life.
We went to meet Rania Haj-Allah at her home in Fuqeiqis, which is between the settlements Negohot and Givat HaBustan. On July 25, settlers from Negohot started working on a road in the hills behind their house.
On the way to them, you pass Ngohot A, which is a “neighbourhood” of Negohot and the sheep farms and now a new Negohot will probably be built.
When you get closer to Rania’s village, you can already see from a distance the works being done in the field.
The hill is bare of stones and a bulldozer is building a sort of fence. When you get closer you can see tents, under one of which a military van is parked and under the other sit the soldiers guarding the “pioneers”. In the centre of the picture, the roofs of the houses of a Palestinian village that is beyond the ridge are sticking out, and this is where the new Negohot will be built, whose residents will make life miserable for the local people.
We entered Rania’s family home and were warmly welcomed by her mother and sister. The meeting with the children was difficult. One of the children, at preschool age, burst into heartbreaking tears when he saw me, and I thought to myself what experiences such a young child has already had that the sight of an Israeli makes him cry like that. The older children and the baby in the house also looked at me suspiciously. As we arrived loaded with all the goodies Smadar had collected, including toys, I was finally able to get some fun out of the boy after we played ball.
We took Rania to her work in Khursa and on the way back on road 60, in front of the spring, near the Dura-Al-Fawwar intersection, two jeeps guarded the road.
'Anabta CP
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'Anabta CP
The checkpoint is located south of the village of 'Anabta, at the intersection of Road 60 (leading to Nablus at the entrance to Area A), with Road (57, 557, 5576) facing west towards the Einav settlement and the checkpoint at the exit from the West Bank - Figs checkpoint. Until 2010 we used to watch the intersection and report the long columns created due to a slow inspection of the vehicles in both directions.
Oct-28-2011Anabta checkpoint 24.10.11
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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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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
Michal TsadikJul-25-2025The interior of the burnt house
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