South Hebron Hills, Tue 29.3.11, Morning

Translator: Charles K.

11:00 – 14:30

While we drank our coffee this morning before our shift, we saw the following story on the internet and decided to go to Susia.

The Civil Administration demolished four temporary structures in the southern Hebron hills.

By: Yehoshua Breiner, WALLA! News desk

Tuesday, 29 March 2011, 8:30

Civil Administration forces, accompanied by Border Police soldiers, this morning (Tuesday) demolished temporary structures, including two tents, at Khirbet Susia in the southern Hebron hills.  The residents reported hearing explosions at the site, and that the soldiers used stun grenades.

It’s not a tsunami, nor an earthquake, or any natural forces rising from the depths of the earth or the seas – it’s the purposeful behavior of people arriving intentionally to do evil.  And we should never accept or become accustomed to people’s evil acts.

At five-thirty in the morning, while the residents were still sleeping, Civil Administration forces, along with Border Police soldiers and about 15 Arab-speaking laborers arrived in 10 military vehicles and a truck with a crane.

The Civil Administration staff, along with the Border Police soldiers, woke up the men, women and children – one woman who is pregnant, another who is nursing, old men -- all, removed from their tents, forced out. When they resisted, the laborers began hitting them, but not before they donned balaclavas to conceal their faces: God forbid someone might identify them. Whom did they beat? A 75-year old man, an old woman – a total of eight injured people were taken to the hospitals in Yatta and in Hebron. It took a while for the ambulances to arrive. The Border Police soldiers threw tear gas grenades, fired into the air. They didn’t arrest anyone – instead, they took people's ID cards.

Without demolition orders, without anything – as if no law existed, as if the Palestinian inhabitants of the location weren’t human. Try to find the ID cards, who knows where they are now – it’s clear to anyone who knows a little about what goes on in the West Bank how hard it is to live without an ID card.

It’s not the first time for these demolitions – it’s the third time.  The first time they also blocked the water cisterns – which hold 80 cubic meters.

They demolished more than twenty tents – where the sheep were kept, as well as those ones in which the people lived.  You should have seen the poverty and the few possessions they owned in order fully to understand how evil you have to be to do something like that.  The Palestinians tell us that large amounts of money also disappeared.  Majid – a young man, 25 years old, with two daughters, speaks Hebrew well, works as a teacher in Samu’a – tells us his mother had NIS 2000 which disappeared from the demolished tent.  Yesterday they sold three sheep in order to buy grain.  Karim tells us that his elderly mother had NIS 1500 that disappeared from her pocketbook.  No, they don’t accuse the army…perhaps the laborers, maybe it’s among the belongings loaded onto the truck – they don’t know where it went and where their things are.  Those who were injured return from Hebron about one in the afternoon (three elderly women, their hands on their hearts…), moving with great difficulty, each of them holding x-rays.  Tomorrow they’ll file a complaint with the police about the loss of the money.

We were not alone there. Red Cross staff also came, taking testimonies, bringing one replacement tent for all the families, ten in all. A delegation from the Palestinian Agricultural Ministry was there, too. You don’t have to search very hard for the reason to do something like this – you saw the attempts to eliminate the people from Al-Araqib, within Israel – but the lords of the land keep the pressure on in the occupied territories – soon we’ll celebrate Passover and crowds of the children of Israel will visit Susia’s antiquities – the redbud trees are blooming, their pink flowers gorgeous – the crowds of the children of Israel don’t have to see Palestinians.  We’ll chase get rid of them before the others arrive.