South Mount Hebron: Settlers send their herd to graze among the Palestinians' fields and olive groves
Meitar checkpoint, as usual for the past year and a half, the car park is almost empty. Workers have not been allowed to enter Israel since the beginning of the war . They have no job, no income, for a year and a half!!!
People are under pressure and fear the outbreak of stress..
We went to Susya, to visit Wadha and Azzam. Azzam arrived later after returning from Hebron. He says that all the entrances to Hebron are closed, there is no free entry and exit, the roads are blocked and therefore the trips are longer. Waste of time and fuel and also nerves! Tells about the settlers who put their herds among the olive trees and in the areas that the Palestinians are trying to cultivate, and they eat and prey on planted trees and plants.
Settlers cut newly planted olive trees, plowed Palestinian fields! And they sowed wheat in them, as if these were their own fields!!!
When the Palestinians call the police, it takes a while for them to arrive and then they are told to file a complaint. This is of course impractical, because they have to submit dozens of complaints every day/week, and come to the station to complain. It's a huge rigamarole, which leads to nothing. The settlers persist with their torturous abuse day and night!
Azzam expresses despair and great fear of the outburst of anger, frustration and suffering of the Palestinians, because every day something happens in the area.
The day after our visit, at night, there was a severe outbreak:
Attached is Basel's post from the same event https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1A8R4UJKtG/
Location Description
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
Daphna JungMar-16-2025Simia: Farhan and his wife
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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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