Zanuta - a tiny village without infrastructure
This time we focused on this small settlement whose story once again represents everything that is happening in the southern Hebron hills as well. It is a 10-minute drive from the Meitar checkpoint and a ten-minute drive from Meitarim Industrial Park and the Southern Hebron Mountain Regional Council.
We came there because Nasser from Susiya said they also had received demolition orders. A small town of about 300 people. We have been there several times to see the school which they set up within theTahaddi – Challenge (the challenge is to the Israeli government which destroys any new school which is built, sometimes waiting until it has actually been built to destroy it) The establishment of schools in each community is against the government orders as they do not receive permits to build. But the community tries to make it easier for children who have to walk miles to the schools and often have to cross busy roads at the risk of their lives (we have written about this more than once). This time we came to the settlement itself because of the demolition orders. A small and shabby settlement. We arrived at the council building and next to it a similar building that was supposed to be a clinic (rundown huts and not buildings). We met the head of the council who works for his living as a nurse at a hospital in Hebron. More residents joined us. They have recently received interim injunctions, Meaning: Existing structures will not be demolished but nothing must be expanded, changed or renovated. The head of the council is an educated and energetic young man who says that their families have lived there since the days of the Turks. And over the years the court has thwarted plans to evict them to Dahariya. (Often the areas to which they are ordered to move are towns which are already filled to bursting point. In some cases also the inhabitants of these villages do not want to receive them). They feel the state is in a hurry to act during the time gap created between Trump and what is expected from the Biden administration. Suddenly the settlers are very active in trying to remove them and to clear the area so as to expand the settlements. In their case they think the desire to create and industrial park and expand is the reason.
The wadi separates them and it is there that they graze their flocks. And the sewage comes down there into the wadi from the industrial park buildings and the Palestinians suffer from the terrible smell (and who is to say that it will not bring disease)/
Water? From wells. Electrical power? This they get from the photoelectric panels, gifts from European organizations. Sanitary conditions are not for them.
Poor and ridiculous little buildings which are a problem for the Israeli authorities.
He shows me an ancient stone structure which was once a mosque and they want to renovate it. But this of course is not allowed
They asked if we could bring journalists to them because it is important for them to tell their whole story and that of the neighboring communities which are experiencing the same thing (This will never get into the Israeli media). I said we would try very hard and would hope that we could do it.
I talked to Raya who said she would try to interest the press.
The trend of deportation and the overcrowding of populations into small areas so as to allow expansion of the settlements, cries to the heavens.
Luckily everything is green and beautiful around now. How beautiful it could have been here if there had also been humanity and justice
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
Yael ZoranMay-22-2025The bumpy road to Ata's house
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Zanuta
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Zanuta was a small rural Palestinian locality until its demolition. It was situated in the space around the town Dahariya in the South Hebron Hills, about a ten-minute ride from Meitar Checkpoint. There are documented remains of a large Byzantine settlement in the area. Since the Ottoman (Turkish Empire) period (1516-1917) Zanuta was documented as a locality of shepherds and farmers who live in the remains of the ancient structures and the residential caves near them.
Two individual ranches of colonists were created next to Zanuta: Meitarim (of the colonist Yinon Levi) to the east, and Yehudah (of the colonist Elyashiv Nachum) to the north. Endless attacks, harassments and attempt to chase away the Zanuta villagers have originated in these two outposts.
Until the expulsion, four families lived in the village: A-Samama, Al-Tel, Al Batat, and Al-Qaisia. Farming constituted their main economic activity and employed most of the villagers. The total area of the village is about 12,000 dunams, of which about 3,000 are tended, mostly with field crops.
This village has never had a master plan that would legitimize construction permits. The Civil Administration claimed it was too small and the distance to the next town, Dahariya, too great. For this reason, the Israeli authorities pressured the villagers to leave. The colonists did the job for them.
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