South Hebron Hills, Susiya
We went straight to Umm El Kheir because of a report that a new fence is being built which blocks the passage of the herd when they come back from the grazing.
‘Id and his family are suffering in the last weeks from the stones being thrown at night by the settlers of Carmel and the threat of demolition which is in the air. When we arrived we met people from Britain who had spent the night there so as to be present when stones are thrown.
We went to see the new fence. Suleiman is reaching the breaking point. They do not understand why it is necessary to build such a cruel fence which will tear the flesh of the sheep. Id asks why it is necessary to make a new fence which will be like the previous one. I phoned the DCO. No one could tell me anything. I was told that they were at a meeting.
Later I phoned Ala Halabi who is responsible for the infrastructure in the Civil Adminustration and asked why they built this fence. I received the reply that this is not the way for the sheep that should not be on state land, and everything was done for security reasons. And the phone was slammed down.
‘Id tells us and shows videos that indicate that the relationship with Ala Halabe is problematic. In the past, he violently attacked his elderly father when he came to one of the destruction rounds of their houses. We will have to follow this up as the bulldozers in the background are working at building a new settlement in Carmel.
From there we went to Tuwani to see the new kindergarten which is supported by Mira Balaban and who is accompanying Intisar in the effort to organize it. The building is good and suitable but has almost no equipment. Intesar keeps the children for four hours a day in almost empty rooms. The children were in the sandbox in the yard. The children turn to us with the V sign and make as if they are shooting at us.
Hopefully we will be able to help Intisar and Mira as much as we can.
We also visited Azam’s family in Susiya. It is also quiet there for the moment.
There’s a welcome in spite of the harsh living conditions there, next to Susya which surrounds it.
In general, the gap in the quality of life between the settlements and their Palestinian neighbor cries out to heaven. And the trend is clear …
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
MuhammadFeb-24-2026South Hebron Hill, Beit Hagai: Paving an internal security road
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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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