South Mount Hebron: Tuba children do not go to school for fear of Maon settlers
Meitar Checkpoint
We saw many trucks loaded with rocks and quarry products. Perhaps from the Kefar Gil’adi quarries near Dahariya. We have reported this in the past. Here.
Road 60
Before we get to where Zanuta village used to ne, Mohammad waves to a Palestinian standing on the Teme-Omarim side, near the road. This is Ahmad Marawiya who comes to water the sheep at the well. He lives below Tene-Omarim between the two farms, and suffers unceasing harassment.
The entrance to Zanuta from the east of the road is fenced off. This is new! Must be the work of the settlers of Havat Meitarim. One can see the remains of the school house from the road.
Road 317
Many new barriers have been erected. They are quite noticeable as the soil is fresh. The dirt track leading from A-Tawane junction to Yatta, too, is blocked with new dirt piles.
A-Tawane
We met Nasser Adara and Salem. Two Italian peace activists from Florence and Torino joined, too. They have been here for a week already. Never heard of MachsomWatch.
We sat below Nasser’s house. The village spread beneath us. A pastoral illusion. On the high hill opposite us we see the woods, hiding Havat Maon that has been threatening A-Tawane for over 20 years. Nasser points to a structure (probably a caravan) on a nearby hill, to the south. This is an expansion of Hanat Maon. We all know that pirate ranches do not depend on the law for confirmation.
Nasser has been prevented from entering Israel for about five years, because of complaints against him by the colonists of Havat Maon. Previously he worked in many places inside Israel. We reminisced about the days when Saber, former head of the village, who advanced the place from a cluster of caves to a village with electricity, water, a school with a yard, a circular road inside the village. Everything requiring unceasing struggles with the ‘security’ authorities. Nasser and Salem send their especially warm regards to Hagit.
Now livelihood is found only in grazing livestock. But it’s a problem: they may not graze on the opposite slope, going up from the Havat Maon woods. South-east is another problematic direction with the sheep, for the colonists from the expanding Havat Maon stop them. There is much violence.
Nasser and Salem speak with great satisfaction about the festive projection held in the village of the film No Other Land made by Basel Adara, Hamdam Bilal, Yuval Avraham and Rachel Shor. Hundreds were invited. Basel was not there. He was supposed to get to Paris to promote the film but his French visa was not approved. He made it to Jordan and had to return. Apparently, a Palestinian living in the West Bank who wishes to go abroad needs the okay of the Palestinian Authority, Israel, and the Israeli army.
The saga of military escort for Tuba children to school in A-Tawane
We asked about the Tuba children – do they get to school accompanied by the army? We were told that since the war began, the army called off its accompaniment of the children to protect them from the Havat Maon colonists. Because of the present expansion of Havat Maon, the Tuba children can no longer walk the longer way around the woods and avoid the Maon cowsheds. Namely, as long as war continues in the south, the Tuba children do not go to school! Find the connection… Reminder: this accompaniment was ruled following a request by members of MachsomWatch to the Knesset Committee on Child Welfare in 2004.
This request was in collaboration with Members of Knesset Avshalom Vilan, Michael Malchior and Yaacov Margi. The claim was that Tuba school children cannot reach their school because their route passes the cowsheds of Maon colony, where they and their civilian accompaniers are attacked by the colonists, assuming that the children are spying on the colony. The ruling on military accompaniment results from the Convention for the Welfare of Children, according to which every child has a right to education. This right, then, has been violated ever since the beginning of the war.
We should check whether anyone has the mental space to deal with this issue. Perhaps together with UN representatives?
South Hebron Hills
See all reports for this place-
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
-
