Susiya - Settlers from the Susiya settlement beat and scare the children
A shift in Susiya
Near the prosperous and growing settlement of Susiya, Palestinians who were evicted from the archaeological site of Susiya years ago live in constant threat and every time the Palestinians are threatened by evicting them from their lands although they have Kushans (legal documents of ownership) from the time of the Turks.
We have written a lot about Azzam and his wife, about Nasr Nawaj’a, a B’Tselem activist who was arrested more than once and whom we accompanied during his arrest and trial. This time we came after several phone calls with Fatma, Nasr Nawaj’a’s sister. She is a social activist, a lawyer, who was also involved in the days when we took the children to the sea in the past years.
Now she also talked about everyone’s economic plight because they are not allowed to enter Israel to work nor are they allowed to work the olive groves, vineyards and fields on the grounds that are too close to the settlement. She asked for our help.
It seems to us that she thinks and expects much more than we do. I explained to her our situation and our limitations. She continues to hope for financial help now in organizing camps in the summer for the children of the villages.
The roads have been closed since October 7 and once again we parked the vehicle beyond the dirt and stone barrier. The young people of the families came to unload the food which we had brought and did so back to back.
According to Fatma’s request, we bought many small packages of basic necessities so that she would distribute equally to 10 families.
She told about Ahmad Nawaj’a who lives closest to the Susiya settlement and because of that he suffers the most from the settlers’ harassment. But other families there are also suffering from the settlement Susiya. According to her, it is mainly young people come who beat, shout, scare the children who are most afraid at nights . According to her, many children are post-traumatic and have been treated in recent months by psychologists and human rights doctors. They were also visited by settlers posing as uniforms and threatening all the time. This morning, before we arrived, she talks about a settler riding a horse who rides around to scare people. The horse stumbled and the rider also fell, and she tells how everyone rejoiced at this sight.
Fatma knows the whole area and its people very well. She also talked about children from Sha’ab al Butum who hid under the beds when their houses were searched. They now wet themselves at night and have difficulty functioning. They also need psychological treatment. She requested time an again that we continue to be in touch with her and visit more. She promised to send videos of the incidents of harassment of the settlers. We also visited Azzam and Wadha. We have reported more than once about them, their nobility and the light of their faces even in these difficult times. He now builds beautiful wooden planters and offers them for sale. I posted a picture of their size and price on WhatsApp for all those interested.
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
Raya YeorMay-15-2025No-traffic signs around Dahariya
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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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