South Hebron Hills, Susiya
We went to Susiya and and visited Azzam and his wife Wadha who are always hospitable …..and tasty
While we were speaking Naser’s brother arrived who said that he had just been stopped by soldiers at the checkpoint when he came back from Yatta. This is something that happens all the time. They inspected him and delayed him for a long time. The inhabitants of Susiya pass through this checkpoint, sometimes several times a day. The army knows them personally . In spite of the they often delay them and the feeling is that they want to harass them and for no other reason. The teachers too who come from Yatta to teach at the school in Susiya and who are well known to the soldiers also complain about being detained.
Azzam claims that the many organizations for peace in Israel are very divided, and if they would unite to one large force they could change the situation. It seems to him that some of them have weakened and decreased. He tells us about the holiday which has ended and its customs, the camel they slaughtered as a sacrifice and the joy of the holiday: In spite of the difficulties – you also have to rejoice. “
We went to al-Tuwani where we had arranged to meet with the young kindergarten teacher Intisar. The goal was to visit the kindergarten and hand her packages of clothes and a few games and toys. We did not manage to visit the kindergarten itself because Inatisar did not have a key (the garden has not yet opened and these days she is organizing children to come there).
We walked (with difficulty) to her house on the top of a steep hill as the car could not get up, and we heard from her about the kindergarten. She works as a volunteer because there is no one to pay her a salary. Probably another case of “falling between the chairs” – no one is interested – neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority. It seems there will be 11 children aged 5-6 in the kindergarten. As the only kindergarten teacher, she can not take more children. After a period when the kindergarten was not active because of various difficulties – Mira Balaban helped her return to work and will accompany her. The garden is still empty, lacking equipment, and it is important and vital to help. (Perhaps through communication with Mira?)
Sunday the kindergarten will open.
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.Jun-2-2026The Israeli car blocking one of the entrances to Simiya
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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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