Settlers Destroy Home of Remaining Umm Barid Family; Police Unwilling to Record Complaint

Greetings, friends –

After we could not enter Umm Barid on Monday, we were determined to visit there the next time we go to Massafer Yatta, on Wednesday November 15. What the settlers of the ‘green bus outpost’ and the brand-new outpost between Avigail and Umm Barid have perpetrated there is the continuation and exacerbation of reckless evil. [webmaster note: neither of those outposts appear in the map below]

Ancient and modern Jewish history has endured firsthand large quantities of human evil, so each time I am amazed anew when I witness Jewish terrorism, a terrorism that was not born yesterday but that has been growing more powerful every day in the West Bank, in Gaza and inside Israel itself. My closest friend, with whom I travel to Massafer Yatta nearly every day now, in order to help our friends there and support them in their hour of dire need, asked: “Are you still amazed?” And I answer, “Once I am no longer amazed at evildoing, I will no longer be able to be a true healer, as Albert Camus said”. Thus went our conversation on our way to Umm Barid, hoping not to run into soldiers, or settlers, or settlers-soldiers, what have you.

[ Webmaster note: Umm Barid – nisnamed “Umm a-Durit” in some maps – is a small village in the north-central part of Massafer Yatta, close to the larger village of Sha’ab al-Batum. A map of Massafer Yatta can be found here. To see the broader surroundings, go to B’Tselem’s interactive map and zoom towards the very south of the West Bank. ]

In October and early November, settlers who established an outpost between Umm Barid and Avigail after the war broke out, repeatedly invaded M.’s family compound. They completely destroyed its fields and greenhouses, caused extensive damage inside the house, cruelly beat M. and his sons, threatened them, and ordered them at gunpoint to leave immediately. Consequently M. and his family start sleeping at another house in the neighboring village, but in the daytime they continue to stay at their home in Umm Barid and see guests and friends there. Other Umm Barid families have not dared to return home at all. When reporting this, we noted that the settlers are planning their next attack.

People tend to open their hearts at times of distress. Since Palestinians, too, are people (I emphasize this because too many people think otherwise), a generous neighbor offered M. and his family to spend nights at his home in nearby Sha’ab al-Batum. In daytime, the family still works in their property at Umm Barid to rehabilitate it from destruction, and in the evening they crowd into their neighbors’ home for a night’s sleep. They had just finally rebuilt from the destruction of late October and the destruction of early November. The demolition that took place on the night of November 13 is, however, impossible to repair. One would have to rebuild everything from scratch. And it might be all in vain yet again, unless the Occupying State of Israel comes to terms with this Jewish terrorism.

On Sunday evening, while the family was still home, the vandals came on their ATV and with their camera drone photographed the entire compound. At night they came again and destroyed everything indescribably: all the furniture, all the food.

• Last time they poured water over the food stuffs. This time they used ground glass.
• They broke the gas stove,
• They broke the washing machine,
• They broke the windows,
• They broke the walls.
• They killed the chickens in their coop,
• They also killed pigeons and their offspring, which the family raised.
• They demolished the greenhouses,
• and uprooted everything the family had replanted after the previous uprooting.

They destroyed even more and more than what’s written above, everything that had remained intact previously and everything that had been repaired since then.

M., his wife L. and his young daughter F., and the four older sons, tell us and describe it all without anger in their voices, without any tones of vengeance. Only a great sense of sadness mixed with the determination of people who have no intention of giving up their old home.

They went to Kiryat Arba [an urban Israeli settlement in Hebron/Al-Khaleel, where the regional Israeli police station is located] to lodge a complaint with the police. They waited there from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m., and the Israeli policeman would not accept their complaint, although by law anyone may lodge a complaint with the police [and even though the Israeli police is the exclusive official address for complaints about suspected settler crimes]. They returned home and called the lawyer who takes care of their affairs. She managed to get the complaint accepted. We will report the results if there are any in the future.

In the meantime, food must be cooked, and laundry taken care of in a large family. We shall help in the purchase of the gas stove and washing machine.

While we were sitting with the family at their neighbor’s home, Z. arrived, another neighbor. His house and olive grove are the closest to Sha’ab al-Batum’s main dirt road . Early last week his children found an unfamiliar object near one of the trees, and alerted their father. Z. identified it immediately as an explosive; this was also written very clearly on the long and narrow object laid there. Z. summoned police that summoned the army, a professional demolition expert came and the charge was detonated. On Monday this week, again such an explosive device was laid in Z.’s olive grove. Again Z. summoned the appropriate bodies, the army came twice, but the device is still laying there, as we see in the picture. There is no limit to the creativity of hatred.

Erella, on behalf of the Villages Group [translated by Tal Haran and Assaf Oron]