South Hebron Hills – you can see Ben Gvir's and Smotrich's handprints
Signs of Smotrich and Ben Gvir in the West Bank
The Civil Administration destroys an irrigation pipeline of the Bedouins // carries out house demolitions without a demolition order or a court order // plans and carries out expansions of settlements on Palestinian land.
We drove on road 317 towards the north and in front of us on the left, south of the settlement of Susiya, we saw a gathering and a truck of the Civil Administration with a terrible device on it to destroy the irrigation pipes of the village of Wadi Jahaish. The water pipe was thoroughly cut into small pieces to prevent any future use. The small gathering also included vehicles belonging to the Civil Administration, Border Police officers and soldiers, as well as Palestinian activists who also took pictures: Nasser from Susiya, Jihad, his brother, from Susiya (head of the council), Hamdan from Susiya, Eid Mam al Khair, Bassel from At-Tuwani.
The demolitions (and this is not the first) are carried out without a demolition order and without a court decision. “What, you want us to steal water? How will we survive? We are like slaves…”
Nasser claims that these are private lands with Kushan on them. are probably intended for the expansion of the Susiya settlement. The field itself is not damaged, but the houses are. The Palestinian activists said that the Civil Administration claims that they are being pressured to increase demolitions by Ben Gvir, Smotrich and Regavim.
We returned to the road and continued north to make a U-turn where there was no dividing line, so as not to get into trouble. The vehicles of the administration and the army obviously do not adhere to this law. We are reminded that Palestinians are not allowed to go down with a vehicle towards Jimba, the vehicles are confiscated.
Muhammad said that Bassel will soon marry an educated relative of Nasser from Ramallah, who will come to live in At-Tuwani. We all send warm wishes to the couple.
Let’s fake it: instead of Apartheid they said the State of Judah.
We continued for a short visit to Nasser in Susiya. His sister, who lives further west near the military base, said that the army trains the settlers in a weapons range. Once again, we are reminded that Susiya exists only thanks to American pressure. They also constantly suffer from threats of house demolition, confiscation of agricultural equipment, etc.
The important infrastructures – water, electricity, telephone – are close to them, but they are intended for the archaeological site and the military camp. When each outpost receives these infrastructures including bus services, the Palestinian Susiya returns and asks to connect to the water and receives no answer. Avoid mentioning the word apartheid, it is considered anti-Semitism. Here it is “the state of Judah”. The police cannot enforce the law here, the army does not serve the state but the settlers.
We bring Eid home to Umm Al-Khair. His Hebrew is excellent. He takes us on a tour around the village so that we understand the new situation. We also met with the head of the council, Khalil.
Eid: “I don’t hate Jews and I don’t hate settlers, I’m just angry about the government’s policy.”
The residents of Wadi Jahaish are Bedouins from the Jahlin tribe, originally refugees from the Arad region. In the 1950s they bought the land from the residents of Yatta. The village was declared illegal, even though it existed before the establishment of the Carmel settlement adjacent to it to the west. Eid emphasizes that the people of the village have never been involved in terrorist activities and testifies that he does not hate Jews or settlers, he is just angry at the government’s policy. The pressure on the village to vacate began in 1980 but has now increased greatly under the new administration. Demolition orders were issued for all the houses, and they have already been demolished 16 times. They bring water in tankers from other Bedouins, who are allowed to buy water from Mekorot. They destroyed a water hole at the beginning of the summer. And of course, they argue against them that they are inside fire area 917 (a continuation of fire area 918 south of Masafer Yatta).
How to speed up ethnic cleansing: closing off the village from all sides and suffocating the livelihood of its residents
The Carmel settlement is adjacent to the village to the west. The settlement is networked with security cameras and as we walk along the dirt road that separates it from the village, Eid warns me to stick to the village fence, at a safe distance from the settlement fence. As I recall, the settler Yaakov Goldstein from the extension neighbourhood (which pulls the settlement towards the southeast) sued Eid’s father years ago for the smell coming from his tabun that bothered him, for the amount of 200,000 NIS. It can’t be proven, but in fact they destroyed the tabun and there are no more tabuns in the village.
A Jew with a kippa crosses the village in his car from north to south. Eid explains: This is not a settler, he just works for the settlers. And so, he shortens the way without getting confused and marks the Jewish ownership here.
South of the village, the Civil Administration announced the establishment of a new neighbourhood of the Carmel settlement, next to the extension neighbourhood. The Israeli flag flies on a hill to the east. They hold a Shabbat reception prayer there every week, with the unfounded claim that there was an ancient synagogue there.
To the north of the village, from the road going up to Zwidin, you can see the Shorashim-Carmel farm of the settler Shimon that closes the village. He walks around the area and threatens. Of course, you must not go off the road towards his farm, nor approach it from the direction of the village, not even with the sheep. The farm has existed for about eight months and has a barn and sheep. The farm even has an ‘Arov Shabbat’ posts with a thread on them that mark the area of space for the residents of the farm where they can move and carry things on Shabbat.
Latest news: this is how voluntary transfer is encouraged in practice
In 2019, the Civil Administration declared all the lands as state lands (only for Jews), from which the Palestinians should evacuate. We gave 80 days to present an objection, this is not enough time, and there is no money for lawyers either. Yesterday afternoon (September 27, 2023) Shimon appeared from Root Farm with soldiers and showed a map: 800 dunams were taken from the village, it is forbidden to go out to pasture, it is forbidden to use the water tap in the area from which they watered the sheep. They must uproot their trees in this area.
The result: not being able to graze the herds, on which the livelihood is based, they are confined in a barn and must be fed expensive food. If they leave with the herds to the north, they will not be allowed to return and will be deported. If they are arrested, there is no money to be released from arrest. The solar panels have not been touched yet. Once a week there is a drone that takes pictures of everything. It is enough for one resident to get discouraged and leave, it will cause a general departure. This is area C, administratively belonging to the weak Palestinian Authority that cannot help them. They depend on the help of international organizations.
We visited “Shig” (the meeting place of the ‘parliament’ of the village men), in the well-kept complex that used to be a kindergarten. You see how beautiful this entire Palestinian settlement could have been if they had left it alone.
We met Italian volunteers and a group from Tel Aviv – Adish company for manufacturing clothes (in partnership with Palestinians in Ramallah and New York) in which traditional fabrics are combined. They go against the public’s indifference to what is happening here, they have offered to finance one of our sea days next summer.
A-Tuwani
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A-Tuwani
The locals came to a-Tuwani during the 20th century from the village of Yatta. They settled in abandoned ruins, utilizing the arable land, pastures for grazing sheep and the abundance of natural caves for habitation. The residents who settled in the caves came from families who could not purchase land for houses in the mother villages, as well as shepherds who did not have enough land to graze. They were joined by clan members who quarreled with other families in the mother locality.
Some of the residents today live in concrete buildings built above the caves. In the area of the village are several water cisterns and an ancient water well called 'Ein a-Tuwani. Local residents are forced to buy water in containers and transport them through many road blocks to the village. With the help of international organizations, an electrical system was installed in the village. In the late 90s of the 20tTh century, an elementary school was established in the serving several small villages in the area.
In 2004, MachsomWatch began visiting and reporting from the Khirbet Tuwani cave village, which suffers badly from the settlers of nearby outposts, and especially from the extremist Ma'on outpost. . The settlers contaminate cisterns, poison the flocks and uproot trees.Particularly notable is the harassment of children from the surrounding villages on their way to school in a-Tuwani, so much so that military escort of children is required to separate them from the attackers (this was arranged following an initiative of the organization's members). In the past year, the escort has been without the vital presence of overseas volunteers.
Near a-Tuwani there are several families who have returned to the caves due to the incessant demolitions of the civil administration (as there is a total construction ban in all of area C). Destroyed are not only residential and agricultural buildings, but also water pipes, machinery. Even water cisterns are clogged up. a-Tuwani residents have created an association for non-violent demolition protests, but in the past year the army’s harsh harassment and settler violence have intensified and escalated. The incident of the small generator confiscation, which left a young man paralyzed, is one of many examples - any legitimate protection of property rights leads to violence and even shootings by the army and the civil administration.
Updated April 2022
Muhammad D.May-13-2025Susiya - at Ahmad and Halima Nawaja'a
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Mesafer Yatta
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Masafer Yatta
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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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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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Umm al-Kheir
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Umm al-Kheir
A Palestinian village in the southern Hebron governorate, populated by five families. The Palestinian residents settled there decades ago, after Israel expelled them from the Arad desert and purchased the land from the residents of the Palestinian village of Yatta. The village suffers from the violence of nearby Carmel settlers, from water shortage and is subject to frequent demolition of buildings by the Civil Administration.
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