South Hebron Hills, Susiya, Umm Al Kheir

Place:

South Hebron Hills

Susiya

Umm Al Kheir

Observers:

Semadar and Michal (repoting and photographing); Translator: Natanya

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Jan-25-2022

Morning

Susiya - MK Isawi Frej with Michal and Semadar

Photo:

Michal Tsadik

Guest Mordechai Avraham: The guest came from Jerusalem. He is a veteran volunteer in transporting patients to hospitals and has expressed interest in our activities in the area. According to him, he was also in the Jordan Valley with Daphna.

Umm al-Kheir

We opened the shift with a condolence visit to the Suleiman Hadalin family in Umm al-Kheir. Eid was busy but we sat with his brother Mu'tasem. As a believer he accepts the fact that every person has to die but not like that and not by the forces of occupation. He told us in detail what is known and clear: Suleiman was run over by a tractor driven by a Jew from Kiryat Arba. No arrests have been made and the army as usual is trying to cover up.

Susiya - Visit of MK Issawi Frej:

There was an impressive assessment by the security forces. A lot of vehicles, men and women soldiers. We were checked as to who we were and what we were doing there. We explained that we had come to visit friends. Azzam said they are waiting for a Meretz MK. To our delight, young people who have been in the area for quite some time have recently arrived, and they said that Issawi Frej should soon arrive.

Yehuda Shaul and Avner Gevaryahu arrived, members of Breaking the Silence. They explained what was happening and showed them the situation and the suffering caused by the settlers. Security personnel were hysterically guarding Issawi Frej, and did not allow the MK to approach the people's homes and the playground. Their claim is that he is in danger. He is definitely not in danger from the Palestinians but from the settlers and the question is why the army does not control the settlers…….but this is the every day occurrence.

After receiving detailed explanations from Yehuda Shaul and a young woman who has been there recently with her friends, he was interested in whom we were asked if we think our actions are helpful in any way. I answered him how important it is that we as citizens would be there to report by seeing and photographing the harsh reality if this area. Of course, there is still not enough perspective to evaluate the actions of the organizations protesting the injustices of the occupation. Only time and history will tell and I wonder what would have happened if we had not been there to document this. His question concerned the effectiveness of all the organizations

At the end of the conversation he said we were the light at the end of the tunnel. He meant us, Breaking the Silence and the young people who do not yet have a definite name, but they live there and are there most of the time. They can tell us what is happening there 24 hours a day.

Location Description

Yata / Southern Hebron hills

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Yatta is a city located in the South Hebron Hills region. It is located in the border zone between the fertile area of Hebron and its surroundings and the desert of the Hebron Hills. Yatta has about 64,000 inhabitants. The surrounding villages are called Masafar 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, a number of 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 the withholding of 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. Road blocks 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

Apr-10-2024

Muhammad D.

Sa'ir - Yael and Ahmad

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Susiya

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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.

Um Al Hir

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A Palestinian village in the southern Hebron governorate, populated by five families. The Palestinian residents settled there decades ago, after Israel expelled them from the Arad desert and purchased the land from the residents of the Palestinian village of Yatta. The village suffers from the violence of nearby Carmel settlers, from water shortage and is subject to frequent demolition of buildings by the Civil Administration info-icon .