South Mount Hebron - there is no going out or coming from Area A, all entrances are closed
The second day of Ramadan.
We passed through Meitar late in the morning, along with us many Bedouin vehicles traveling towards Dahariya, a traffic jam at the checkpoint.
We met Shafiq, a taxi driver from Dahariya at the checkpoint. Shafik reports that in his estimation only 1 percent and perhaps less than the 8,000 workers who passed through the checkpoint every day are moving to Israel these days. He estimates that there are no more than 50 Palestinians crossing the checkpoint.
On Route 60 we watched a settler on a horse herding his sheep in the Palestinian Zanuta.
Farhan from Simia informs us that all exits and entrances to the road, including Samu’, are closed.
Every day the entrances to Route 60 are checked and closed by the army.
There is no exiting or entering from A areas, all entrances are closed, everything.
We see locked vehicles at the exits to Route 60. It turns out that the army takes the keys of the vehicles trying to get on the road, does not return the keys to the vehicle owners, so it takes a few days until a tow truck arrives and loads the vehicle back to Area A.
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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