Early Feb. 2024: Settlers Carve Unauthorized Road in Susiya through Private Palestinian Fields

Last week Villages Group activists visited both eastern (map below) and western (map further down) Massafer Yatta. A larger 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.

Dear friends,

Again, I sit in front of the empty computer screen, and have a hard time deciding what to tell you now. Every hour, every day, difficulties and crimes pile up even in Massafer Yatta, and there is no justice, no pay, we cannot even help, not to mention rescue.

Since the present war broke out, our permanent aid (helping with studies and professional courses) has been augmented with existential needs of a population now denied the possibility of making a living. We can still bring them pampers and milk powder for babies, basic food for families, medication and the like – thanks to your donations, dear friends! – but we cannot affect the trampling, power mongering settlers and the government’s policy (army, police, Civil Administration). These now multiply basic needs and our abilities diminish. Sometimes I think that even Sisyphus would give up…

What we do unconditionally is maintain a discourse in which our friends, and we, might find a source of strength.

Early this week we visited our friends in Taban. A. said that for a few days, settlers did not bring their flocks to graze in Taban’s farmland. “And now on Saturday again they came,” he continued. “Their large flock dined on the barley we had sown in our fields, and which had just begun to sprout.” A familiar pain between smarting insult and helplessness took over the room. Into this silence, I said: “You are brave people.” They asked me why I say this, and I answered it was because they manage to control themselves and not take revenge.  I googled and found the 2006 poem “Revenge” by Taha Muhammad Ali, and asked young F. to read it aloud in Arabic for those present:

At times … I wish
I could meet in a duel
the man who killed my father
and razed our home,
expelling me
into
a narrow country.
And if he killed me,
I’d rest at last,
and if I were ready—
I would take my revenge!

*

But if it came to light,
when my rival appeared,
that he had a mother
waiting for him,
or a father who’d put
his right hand over
the heart’s place in his chest
whenever his son was late
even by just a quarter-hour
for a meeting they’d set—
then I would not kill him,
even if I could.

*

Likewise … I
would not murder him
if it were soon made clear
that he had a brother or sisters
who loved him and constantly longed to see him.
Or if he had a wife to greet him
and children who
couldn’t bear his absence
and whom his gifts would thrill.
Or if he had
friends or companions,
neighbors he knew
or allies from prison
or a hospital room,
or classmates from his school …
asking about him
and sending him regards.

*

But if he turned
out to be on his own—
cut off like a branch from a tree—
without a mother or father,
with neither a brother nor sister,
wifeless, without a child,
and without kin or neighbors or friends,
colleagues or companions,
then I’d add not a thing to his pain
within that aloneness—
not the torment of death,
and not the sorrow of passing away.
Instead I’d be content
to ignore him when I passed him by
on the street—as I
convinced myself
that paying him no attention
in itself was a kind of revenge.

Nazareth, April 15, 2006 [ Translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi and Gabriel Levin ]

After this there were no more questions. Only the head nods, agreeing.

Later in the week we visited A. in the outskirts of Susiya. Settlers of Sussya settlement and its satellites have now been harassing A. and his aging parents daily (I wrote about him in past reports). Last Saturday, February 3, 2024, wildcat settler “road work” began, paving a track through his own farmland, the same land the settlers have prevented him from tending since the outbreak of the current war. They just brought a bulldozer and began carving the land. They work at night. As usual, there is no justice. No one to turn to. We sat in the morning sun with A. and his father, next to what would be a house when A. would be able to afford completing its construction. We saw the injustice with our own eyes.

So much sadness was in their eyes, and no rage. I heard myself telling A. what I had already said in Taban this week, and for the second time this week I was asked why I said this. I told A. the Taban story and gave him the same poem, printed out.

When he was done reading, he said: “We don’t think about revenge. We think about ways to stay on our land. We would gladly live in peace with our neighbors. But they do not want this.”

A. speaks very little, if ever. I never heard him utter so many words at once. Every word is golden and when I write them, they are etched in my heart.

I send them to you with much love.

Erella, On behalf of the Villages Group [translated by Tal Haran, except for the poem]

Jan. 21-27: Umm Barid Family attempts to return Home, and Settlers Poison their Water Source

This week’s visits were to friends in north-central Massafer Yatta. A larger 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.

Dear friends,

Another week has gone by since our last report. Seasonal rains are falling almost on time, the wheat is growing again, and the list of the killed and wounded, the suffering people and the refugees has been growing longer and longer as though it too belongs to nature’s laws… Darkness is thicker now, and it’s hard to remember where light comes from into this world.

Emerging out of this darkness, we keep visiting our friends in Massafer Yatta. There’s not enough room on the page to write in detail the events that keep piling up even in a single hour, let alone a week. “The situation” boils down to thousands and thousands of events ,with names and addresses of real people who pay the price for others’ hatred and aggression. The lawless haters have names and addresses as well, but in these parts the “rule of law”, too, belongs to them, so they walk around caged in their ignorance and free to perpetrate anything their hateful heart desires.

The modest home of M. and his family from Umm Barid has already been demolished four times by settlers since the war started (See also our most recent report on this family and their home). This week the family completed renovating their home, the greenhouse, and the fruit tree grove for the fifth time. They are not allowed to tend their fields in the valley because of settlers’ rule. They plowed and sowed the field next to their home, and the wheat is growing again, and the settlers bring their flocks there to graze and destroy the wheat again. And still, this week the family returned home. During the first few nights two Israeli volunteers joined them, and the first three nights passed peacefully. We visited them later in the week. I brought them more mandalas to color, and taught them “Taki” (one of those table games… a variation on the American game of Uno). They say it helps them to relax a bit after their working hours in the field and at home.

During the night between Wednesday and Thursday, on January 25th, in fact exactly on Tu BiShvat, the Jewish New Year of Trees, settlers from the nearby outpost came and poured diesel and engine oil into the cistern above M.’s house, and ruined the water pump engine.

We were there the next day. Outside the wind blew wild and it was very cold. We sat with them around the ‘Soba’ (fireplace), L. made food, her daughters-in-law helped, one son who had kept night-watch duty was sleeping, and M. and the rest of his sons sat with us. There was this kind of silence filled with mutual attentiveness, and I – still trying to control my anger – asked M. again: “Where do you get your powers from, where do you hide your rage?” M. hears me out, and in the most natural of ways, answers: “Tomorrow we shall take out the dirty water from the well, clean it, and the next days’ rain will fill as much as it will. God willing.” My mind is emptied of the remains of my rage. There is no hatred in this man, no thoughts of revenge. I also tell myself that he is the source of light cutting through the darkness that closes in on the world, and they are already distributing the “Taki” cards among us.

From Umm Barid we proceeded to visit the family of the late Harun. As written in one of our recent reports, a few weeks ago they returned to their home in Rakeez, having been displaced for two months for fear of the Avigail and Havat Ma’on settlers.

Benevolent coincidence had us meet our friends Giora and Har’el there. About a decade ago, Giora – born and raised in our kibbutz, Shoval – asked us how he could help our friends in Massafer Yatta. We raised the problem of firewood for the fireplace that the area’s inhabitants need for warmth and cooking, especially in the winter months. [this region has high elevation and strong winds, combining for rather chilly winters.] Although Giora has been living for years in Kibbutz Samar in the ‘Arava Valley (near Eilat), he has met the challenge. He recruited Har’el, another Samar member, and the two have been on the five-hour road from Samar to Massafer Yatta and back quite a few times every year, bringing firewood with them for several of the poorest families in the area. In recent months, they have done so in collaboration with our friends No’am and Gali who live on a farm in the Northern Negev.

After they finished unloading the firewood, Giora and Har’el together with No’am entered the family cave at Rakeez and shared the tea we were served. In his own manner, Giora tried to encourage the father of this long-suffering family, sharing with him his forecast that this suffering will come to an end in the not-so-distant future, because the nationalist adventures of Jews in this country always end rather soon in historical terms.

After some minutes, having finished their tea, Giora and Har’el took their leave from the family and from us and went on their long way to their own kibbutz in the desert. Next week they intend to come back, carrying another load of firewood for other families.

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

Jan. 7-13: Harun’s Family Returns Home to Rakeez; and Other Stories of Resilience

This week’s visits were to friends in north-central Massafer Yatta. A larger 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.

At the beginning of the Gaza war the family members of the late Harun – a young man shot in the neck by a soldier on 1.1.2021 while trying to stop soldiers from robbing his family’s generator and who passed away almost a year ago after two years of suffering – left their home in Rakeez and moved to the regional urban center of Yatta. They did so because, as we and others have been documenting online, relentless settlers with the full backing of Israel’s government, judiciary and military have been exploiting the terrible massacres of October 7th as a pretext to accelerate the multi-pronged ethnic cleansing of West Bank Palestinians, with particular focus on Massafer Yatta. These settlers and in effect the entire state apparatus, have declared war in a place where there is not even an enemy.

This is why Harun’s family escaped to Yatta. But last week they returned to Rakeez! They missed home; Yatta did not grow on them. Their sheep, too, wished to return to their pastures which have now greened after the fall rains. They know that the aggressive behavior of Occupation forces, which during the war have become a military-settler amalgam, has only escalated – and yet they have returned. This way, they can at least start restoring the vegetable patch, the sheep will graze on some grass and provide milk. There will be some food somehow.

But the area’s settlers, who are now the official regional military “emergency squad” with uniforms and military weapons, keep trying to prevent local farmers from tilling their own lands and grazing their own herds, and threaten the farmers’ lives continuously. The Israeli public and the world have turned a blind eye on the injustices committed here for years, and Harun’s family had already paid a dear price. In 2021 as now, there is no war in Massafer Yatta. [only injustice]

We visited the family last week, and for us too it felt like a homecoming. During our visit R. was with the sheep together with his 7-year-old daughter D. While we enjoy the visit (we have not seen the family since the war started), we were told that an armed settler appeared in the family fields. We did not go there in order to avoid providing a pretext (Occupation forces dislike “leftists” as they call us). R. returned with the sheep, who remained hungry that day.

We then visited S. and his family, also in Rakeez. They have not left their home, but during the war they have been suffering from ongoing encroachment on their lands, and intrusion into their living spaces. We have witnessed this before. The few residents of Rakeez who still live at home and till their lands go to bed in fear, wake up in fear every morning, go about their entire daily routine in fear – and when we come and visit, they tell us that things will surely get better soon. Indeed, they are such “a dangerous enemy” [that is, an enemy” according to the dominant media-political-military narrative in Israel, a narrative attempting to justify the injustice by demonizing all Palestinians everywhere].

We continued down the road to A-Tuwani, where we visited Zakaria again. As we wrote last week, Zakaria was shot in October by a settler and spent three months in a hospital in Hebron/Al-Khalil. In another three months Zakaria will undergo his 12th surgery, this time in an effort to restore his digestive system. Until then, he needs more than 100 sterile treatment kits, available only in hospitals. The Al-Khalil hospital discharged him with only three kits. A wonderful doctor from Israel’s Sheba hospital (near Tel-Aviv) has helped us yet again, providing more kits. There are still good people one can find along the way, and they help provide light especially in such dark times.

Over the weekend we visited M.’s family from Umm Barid. That’s the family whose home and entire belongings were destroyed by settlers in October-November in repeated attacks. They still persist and persevere with restoration attempts. They live in a small house donated by a neighbor in nearby Sha’ab al-Butum. They too were mentioned in last week’s report, with the picture of a dove’s first flight we had brought them. Settlers from the nearby outpost are still strolling around the home and greenhouses which are undergoing gradual restoration, and around the fields which have been sowed.

We visited the family in their temporary Sha’ab al-Butum home. No one knows what tomorrow may bring, but they are full of faith. “After all, I have now coordinated with the military [for protection]” says M. with shining eyes. Meanwhile we brought them some coloring books, designed both for children and adults. Even before I start explaining that Mandala coloring is a type of meditation, M.’s eldest son S. who is father to the four young children running around as we spoke, told me: “This is truly like a doctor for the soul, please bring me one as well next time.”

I smiled to myself and recalled the well-known Zen parable, here is one of its many versions:

A man walks along the road and suddenly notices a tiger chasing him. He runs as fast as he can and jumps to hang on a tree trunk by the roadside in order to escape the tiger. As he tries to catch his breath, he notices that the trunk in fact hangs precariously above a deep ravine, at the bottom of which growls another tiger. While he tries to improve his grip on the tree trunk, the man notices two giant rats gnawing away at the base of the trunk.

So: a tiger behind, a tiger below, and two rats gnawing away at his last chances of survival. In that very moment, the man notices a grape vine growing from the side of the cliff near him, bearing fruit to a bunch of grapes. As he maintains his grip in one hand, the man reaches out his other hand and picks the bunch. He eats the grapes and says to himself, “How delicious!!!“

Erella on behalf of the Villages Group [translated by Assaf Oron]

Week of Dec. 24-30: Resilience in the Face of a Morally Corrupt Military Rule

Most events in this weekly update took place in north-central Massafer Yatta. A larger 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.

Dear friends,

The days go by, and writing becomes ever more difficult, directly tied to the growing difficulty of containing reality around us in all levels and directions. It is an ever-growing difficulty to contain human ignorance and its consequences, and to keep choosing to be a true healer (I borrow this expression from Albert Camus, who – in his novel The Plague – divides humans into four groups: murderers, victims, innocent murderers, and true healers). It is so difficult to witness the evil deeds that gradually multiply, while our ability to help continues to diminish.

Tulin and Sulin are twin 4-month-old baby-girls. They live in the Palestinian village of al-Mufaqara and we have known their father since he was a little child. Tulin was born with problems in her respiratory system. Doctors had to open her neck (the professional term is tracheostomy) in order to ease her breathing and remove the accumulating phlegm. She spent two and a half months at a Hebron hospital. Since she came home, we have provided her with the catheters that remove the phlegm. Her family could not obtain them for lack of access (the village is blocked and mobility difficult) as well as economically (1,000 NIS monthly cost). These catheters are life-saving, for without them Tulin would suffocate. We buy them in Israel and bring them to al-Mufaqara.

Last Wednesday, December 27^th, we delivered catheters for Tulin and sat for a while with her parents. Like most Massafer Yatta men, Tulin’s dad cannot get to his workplace in Israel since war broke out. With us sat the grandparents and aunts and uncles as well, young and old. They were glad to share tea with us and to praise their grandchildren.

Suddenly, with the speed of those skilled in such instant shifts from relaxation to emergency response, they all rose at once and ran up the hill to the edge of the range, several meters from their home. While trying to keep up with them and to comprehend this abrupt transition, I saw settler ATVs and mini tractors on the opposite range, their passengers descending on foot to the wadi below us. As we watched, a police car as well as a military vehicle arrived too. The children and the adults were on edge, bracing themselves for every possible scenario. As we stood on the very tip of the range, we could see that in the wadi, all its fields Palestinian-owned, one landowner dared to plow his olive grove. A small grove with ten olive trees. The neighboring settlers could not tolerate this. The owner called the police [and of course the police and military showed up right away]. Tulin’s family breathed freely. This time it was not about their private area.

Before I had time to process this experience, I had a call from Y., in another village. His village was invaded in the morning – as it is daily – by two settlers with an ATV who photographed the villagers and their children up close. Shortly afterwards, five settlers in uniforms arrived in a pickup truck. From the opposite direction came five ‘normal’ soldiers on foot. It remained unclear who had summoned whom. It was only obvious that the former were rude and violent, while the ‘normal’ soldiers were a bit gentler though they did not prevent a thing. Two young villagers were beaten up, shackled, blindfolded and taken by the pickup truck to an unknown destination. One of the villagers was taken off the vehicle and left somewhere, and the other was brought in the evening to the police station, all bruised, on (completely made-up) charges that he had hit a soldier. However, no matter how ridiculous the charges, as soon as settlers lodge a complaint, it enters official “legal” proceedings [of course the entire thing is the very opposite of proper law and order], and we cannot do a thing.  Lawyers, too, cannot help much in such cases. The settlers know that this is yet another form of harassment and torture, one of their favorite tracks for “silent” ethnic cleansing.

With these two experiences we arrived in Umm Barid. In previous reports I wrote about the family who lives there – two parents, four sons ages 20-30, four daughters-in-law, two grandchildren and a 13-year-old daughter. They all lived in a compound they had built on their own land, and developed a marvelous little farm. All this was cruelly destroyed in October-November by settlers who have squatted nearby, and who think that the land belongs to them.

Early last week the family returned home to rebuild it. The father says he has reached an agreement with the deceptively-named “Civil Administration” and the police, that they will guarantee his safety. Such a story we have never encountered before [considering the context – as exemplified by the two other episodes in this report – whereby the military (which runs the deceptively-named “Civil Administration”) and the police always do the settlers’ bidding, rarely stop settlers from committing crimes against locals, and are increasingly indistinguishable from the settlers].

Time will tell. Anyway, the determination, perseverance, trust and heart-warming smile of the father whom we met plowing his field with his donkey, this unbearable lightness of being, could only be practiced by those who know that they belong to the land.

Erella, on behalf of the Villages Group

Dec. 24: Between Maghayir al-‘Abeed and New Zealand

Maghayir al-‘Abeed is in east-central Massafer Yatta. A larger 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.

Maghayir al-‘Abeed  might be the most beautiful locality in Massafer Yatta. Once, a long time ago, it used to be a sizable community in Massafer Yatta terms: there were 7-8 families living here. Under the pressure of Israel’s Occupation regime, the families left one by one, with only one or two families remaining there now (depending how you count them) – Sh. And his wife, sons and daughters living in the bottom cave, and Sh.’s mother living in the upper cave with her unmarried daughter, N.

Because of the site’s isolation and its few inhabitants, Maghayir al-‘Abeed  has become an easy target for settlers from Havat Ma’on and its offshoots. In recent months, even prior to the present war and all the more after it broke out, they have been making considerable efforts to force Sh.’s family to leave. Among other things, the settlers have taken over much of the family’s land and its water holes, devastated its olive grove, killed several sheep, entered the caves to conduct ‘searches’, beaten up Sh. And his sons, and terrorized the family with their threats and wild night rides near the caves. In short, their usual repertoire, concentrating all of it on this one small family, determinedly holding on to its land.

The mentioned blows have been augmented by another – for about a month and a half a disease has afflicted Sh.’s flock, causing the death of the older sheep, those who had already given at least one birth. We – helpless in our attempts to prevent settler terrorism – have been trying to help Sh. cope with the disease. We connected Sh. with an Israeli veterinarian who is our friend and who has visited the south Mt. Hebron communities with us in the past. After speaking on the phone with Sh. and seeing several photos, our vet friend managed to diagnose the disease. Unfortunately, it is a harsh one with no current remedy. The only way to deal with it is to take blood samples from the males of the flock. These samples are to be sent to a laboratory, in order to conduct genetic diagnosis showing which of the males is more resistant to the disease. These males would lead the development of resistance in the flock through their offspring.

Equipped with test tubes provided by the Israeli vet, we arrived there on Sunday, December 24^th. Sh. made sure a Palestinian vet from Yatta would be there to help with the tests. Thus, not much longer after our arrival, the Palestinian vet arrived with two helpers. Sh.’s son led all three to the family’s sheep pen. They caught the males one by one and took samples of their blood. At the same time, they marked the males with numbers on their fleece and on one horn, so that after the lab test, they could identify which male carries that hoped-for genetic material resistant to the disease.

In two days, the samples will be sent by the firm for which the Israeli vet works, to one of the state-of-the-art labs in New Zealand, world capital of sheep husbandry.

In the noise and destruction of this terrible war, we managed to create a Palestinian-Israeli-international ad hoc cooperation, aiming to rescue the rest of Sh.’s flock from the virus that has afflicted it, beyond settler harassment. It is a small but precious cooperation that connects two ends of the sheep world – beautiful and dry Maghayir al-‘Abeed and lush, green New Zealand.

Ehud, on behalf of the Villages Group

Dec. 4: Settler Violence Continues in Susiya, and a Life Lesson from Young I.

 A larger 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.

Dear friends,

For several days I couldn’t manage to share with you even a bit of my experiences in Massafer Yatta. The roar of bombing and shelling on Gaza, and of missiles launched from Gaza to Israel, all so loud as to feel they are inside my home, have been draining my strength. [Erella’s home is in Kibbutz Shoval 25km from Gaza.]

On Monday, December 4^th, we visited an old friend in Susiya. His home is rather distant from the main area of the village, and outside the siege that has been forced upon it since war broke out. Somehow our 4X4 made its way on a roadless road, and brought us to A.’s home. No cannons, no missiles. No blows, no blood. Only a half-plowed field in the beautiful valley below us.

“Wow, you have started plowing!” I merrily said to A., grasping at the remnants of my innocence. “No, I stopped plowing” he answered, with a smile that could not hide his pain.  “Settlers arrived and drove me out of my own field, by threatening to kill me.”

On my left sat his old mother, nodding her weary head. She too smiled this kind of helpless, depressed smile. The half-plowed field, its plowed half etched violently with settler ATV tire marks, etched itself in my heart which had been wrong to beat with joy a moment earlier. I looked at the old mother, and at A. who must feed his children, and wondered what keeps them going.

Two days later I asked young I. from another village, what keeps him going after soldiers kidnapped him from his home, beat him up all night and let him go in the morning. “All night I only thought about how I don’t want to be like them”, he said.

In silence, I thank these people who don’t even realize what great teachers they are.

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

Nov. 29: Surprise Reunion with an Old Friend

On Wednesday, VG activists again visited north-northwestern Massafer Yatta. A larger 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.

Greetings, friends –

On Wednesday, leaving for Massafer Yatta, we notified M. [the Umm Barid farmer currently sheltering in Sha’ab El-Butum] that we would reach them around noon. His wife L. called us right away and pressured us to arrive in the morning. I asked whether anything had happened, and she replied that nothing had happened, but we should come in the morning. In our rush to bring a life-saving medical device for a baby girl with respiratory trouble in another village, we could not do as she asked. So, I repeated that we could only come around 2 p.m. and made sure to explain the reason. Personally, I wondered why it was so important for M.’s family that we do come in the morning.

At 1 p.m., we finally we arrived at M.’s temporary residence (received from a generous neighbor after settlers had wrecked L. and M.’s own home in nearby Umm Barid). I got out of our car and noticed that the entire family was standing by the door. They seemed to be hiding a secret, and the closer I got the more smiles I saw. Still thinking this performance seemed a bit odd, I then noticed an elderly man, tall, fancily dressed in a white kufiya and his face glowing. “Abu Hani!” I called, excitement flooding me. If Arab culture enabled public embraces between unrelated men and women, that is what would have happened upon this surprising encounter. Ya’ir, present as well, was excited too, and organized a shared photo for posterity.

We entered the room. The entire family surrounded us, and L. said: “He has been waiting for you here since morning”. Finally I realized the meaning of her pressuring me to arrive early. I asked: “Why didn’t you tell me?” “We wanted it to be a surprise” she answered, her shining eyes looking at me mischievously. Everyone was laughing, while I was on the verge of tears.

I had not met Abu Hani since settlers wrecked his home on October 15, 2023. His home was situated on his fields, between Umm Barid and Mufaqara, and very close to the Israeli settlement of Avigail. I knew from Abu Hani’s neighbor and good friend M., that he was staying with his son in Yatta. Slowly, Abu Hani revealed what he had undergone on that bitter day when armed settlers beat him up and humiliated him, and then forced him at gunpoint to face and watch his home being destroyed. “They left not a single stone intact”, he says. And since then there has been no justice, no law, no accountability.

I asked him what he was doing in Yatta. “Yatta is a crowded, noisy town. I have no earth to love there, nor the field’s morning fragrances”, he answered. There was no sense of misery or self-pity in anything he said. He did not complain while recounting what had happened. Mainly he was amazed at all the evil that people could produce. This man has an awe-inspiring presence, filled with integrity.

So, we sat and listened. L. and M., too, recounted their own destruction stories. We then reminisced about our visits at Abu Hani’s home before it was wrecked. M. was the mediator and interpreter, since Abu Hani is hard of hearing. We remembered the tasty grapes Abu Hani used to grow in his small garden, and talked about how wonderful life can be. We remembered that in our last visit, Abu Hani said we should bring our spouses next time and celebrate a little.

The atmosphere in the room was pleasant, relaxed, as though the lives of people there have not been turned upside down, not to say destroyed. I took advantage of a moment’s pause in their stories, and asked: “What keeps you from being angry, hateful, revengeful?” “What can we do?” M. answered. His mental space does not even recognize the possibility of hating or taking revenge. Abu Hani said: “The bad ones will be punished by Allah. I am not Allah. He will see to it that they get what they deserve. And He will take care of the good ones, too.”

We brought Abu Hani to the main road. For long moments we waved goodbye and blew kisses in the air until he disappeared. His son would pick him up from there. That morning, this man, with his walking cane, made his way to the village on foot only in order to meet and surprise us. When Allah rewards the good and righteous, He will certainly reward Abu Hani.

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

November 13: It Is becoming Really Dangerous

On Nov. 13 Erella and Ehud started their visit right in the heart of Massafer Yatta, where people live precariously in the midst of Israeli-declared “Firing Zone” designated to drive them out. And indeed in 2022 after 22 years of legalistic wrangling, Israel’s “High Court Of Justice” sided with Occupation authorities, and decided Palestinian residents have no right to live there, despite locals having roots there before Israel gained military control in 1967. So residents face imminent eviction. It is hard to get there even in ordinary times, let alone since the Gaza war started.

Greetings, friends –

The autumn that softly caresses the valley, and the curves of the hills sloping down into valleys all the way south to the Arad Plain (inside Israel), know not that they are in fact “Firing Zone 918”. The sky sails above us in marvelous cloud formations and we, driving to our friends in Massafer Yatta, surrender to a moment of illusion, as if there were no war.

H. from Mughayir al-Abed has prosaic problems. All of a sudden three sheep died for some unknown reason. Under the current situation no vet can arrive from Yatta or Hebron. We contacted an Israeli vet whom we know and he gave the best advice he could.

H.’s daughter R., an 11^th-grader, wants to quit school. Even on normal days, “normal” Occupation time, days when the settlers harass them only occasionally and not on a daily basis, she and her 14-year-old sister walk to school at A-Tuwani for an hour-and-a-half each way. But now, since the outbreak of war, there is no in-person schooling. Classes are held over the phone, and last week the phone got tired and stopped working. R. decided she has had enough. She has been missing out on material, and it is difficult anyway because she and her sister only have one phone between them. I spoke with her for a long time and we reached an understanding – we shall bring phones for her and her sister, and studies will continue.

As we were sitting in H.’s cave, our phone rang ominously. Our friend M. from Umm Barid was asking us to come quickly. Settlers from the outpost near Avigail vandalized his home and farmland for the third time in a short while [we were there last week, after one of the attacks]. The photos M. sent on Whatsapp were appalling. We were sorry to get out of the Massafer Yatta “Firing Zone” into which we managed to enter today without the army stopping us; to leave before we could get to other families we had planned to visit – but we answered M.’s call.

Ascending a moderate slope on a narrow dirt road, our Subaru carried us towards Sha’ab Al Butum, en route to Umm Barid. [see map below for the approximate route between the two villages, in blue]

Suddenly we saw a military vehicle blocking our way. We drove up close. From about ten meters we noticed that four of the six soldiers in the vehicle were pointing their guns at us. One of them gestured, unclearly – what did they want? For us to stop? To drive closer? To turn about?

We drove closer slowly and carefully. Then the rifles were pointing even more accurately, and the gesturing hand became even more agitated. We stopped. Almost at once I swiftly imagined several scenarios – I saw myself telling the soldiers that after all we are in Area C, outside the “Firing Zone”, and Israeli citizens may travel such areas as freely as they wish. But I saw these settler-soldiers’ eyes, blazing hate and dripping arrogance, noted their rifles continuing to point right at us – and said to Ehud: “Turn around and drive back as fast as you can.”

We did not reach M. and his family who had summoned us. We went home. My soul filled with helpless rage.

We too can be shot like ducks, just as they do to Palestinians.

Erella, on behalf of the Villages Group (translated by Tal Haran and Assaf Oron)

White Man’s Burden – the Israeli Occupation’s “Civil Administration” Version

Dear Friends,

By a miracle of sorts, we had a mostly peaceful day in South Hebron today; such an event is so rare that I thought it might be worth mentioning to you. In lieu of a more substantial report, let me just say that Abu Sharif and Fadil plowed three fields, with an iron plow and a donkey, on one end of the wadi at Umm al-‘Amad, just under the settlement of Otniel– lands they were denied access to for some 15 years– and there was a slightly higher-tech plowing, with an old tractor, at the other end of the wadi as well. The settlers and the soldiers kept their distance. The goats grazed freely. The sun was sweet. If the rains come, there will be crops of barley in these newly regained fields.

David Shulman gives traditional farming a hand under the guidance of a Palestinian resident, November 2013

At Umm al-Ara’is, on the other hand, the standard ritual played itself out; the ‘Awad owners were driven off their land, along with our activists, by the soldiers, as happens week after week.

Lest anyone be tempted to think that things are better, I should mention that the committee of the “Civil Administration” that [according to Israel] still has the authority to approve Palestinian development plans in West Bank “Area C”, has rejected the village development plan submitted by residents of Palestinian Susya.

This means that if the final appeal to the High Court [which had heard this case for years – then punted it back to the “Civil Administration” a few months ago] goes against the residents, the entire village, housing some 300 to 400 people, will be demolished and its inhabitants expelled

(the demolition orders have been hanging over them for years, and the “Civil Administration” [see here for a chronology of its torment of area residents in 2008-2011] is talking about issuing final orders to destroy all the tents and shacks and infrastructure).

The “committee” offered the following rationalization of its decision:

“This plan offers no hope that the population can be advanced beyond the state of poverty and ignorance to which its representatives have condemned it….

The city, as the meeting place of diverse populations, serves as a source of cultural, economic, and educational enrichment. On the other side of the scale, the village dwellings are fragmented and scattered, founded upon tribal and clan identities which suffocate the citizen, the individual, and which offer no means for social development or opportunities for making a living, for cultural or educational experience…

The urban structure lets people meet one another, multiplies opportunities, enriches the horizons of each and every one in the family or tribe as in the wider society. Thus, in our view, the present plan is but another attempt to prevent this impoverished population from making progress…

It also prevents the Palestinian woman from liberating herself from the cycle of poverty and closes off opportunities for work and education. Similarly it keeps the Palestinian child away from the opportunities open to everyone else and condemns him to life in a small, degenerate village.”

If anyone had any doubt as to whether the Occupation of the West Bank is a colonial enterprise through and through, this passage should settle the question.

[It must also be noted that the fabled “enriching urban environment” towards which the Occupation wants to cleanse Susya residents, is none other than Yatta – a down-and-out town of ~50,000 residents suffering from inadequate infrastructure, economic suffocation – 75% of residents are day-laborers for Israeli bosses (pdf link), and – at least according to Israeli media – rampant crime]

Military Vehicle keeping a watch upon Palestinians plowing their lands, November 2013

The sheer cynicism is astonishing: you can guess who has kept the Palestinians of Susya in poverty, and who now intends to expel them from their ancestral homes and lands. The West Bank must be the last site in the world where this kind of language, reminiscent of French Algeria or apartheid South Africa or colonial Kenya or Tanganyika [or, indeed, the self-righteous precedent providing the post’s title], can still be used without shame.

David Shulman

Editor’s notes:

[Comments in square brackets] are mine. As the links in the post show, this struggle has been going on – and covered by us – for quite a while. Click on those links to learn more.

I insist upon placing “Civil Administration” in quotations. It is a faux government body with a fraudulent name – designed specifically (by Ariel Sharon in 1982) to create an impression of “law and order” when there is none.

As this latest gem from the “Administration” shows, the only guiding principle of that impostor body (which – contrary to its misleading name – is actually a branch of the Israeli military, and whose legal authority is questionable to nonexistent) is: quash the Palestinians and take their lands, and find as many lands as possible to give to Jewish settlers.

The “Civil Administration” hacks will find or invent any legalistic, bureaucratic pretext to cover up this naked racism and thievery. In the current case, apparently, they are stupid enough as to be unaware of the historical context of their charade.

Here are some addresses and numbers you might try, in order to protest these policies:

Israel’s defense minister, sar@mod.gov.il or pniot@mod.gov.il, Phone: +972 3 6975349 Fax: +972 3 6976218 /691 6940 / 696 2757 / 691 7915 / 697 6711 (they are said to hate faxes),

or the ministry’s US outlet (info@goimod.com, fax 212-551-0264).

And of course… feel free to share and cross-post this widely.

Thanks, Assaf

Two Stories from the Month of October

Dear Friends,

We visit villages in South Mt. Hebron once a week. (During the other days of the week they “visit” us, in our thoughts and actions, in our phone talks with them, and among us about them.) And since there is never a dull moment (in life in general and in the occupied land in particular), if we were to share with you the constant current of our experiences, spending all the time at the computer wouldn’t be enough to describe even a little bit. But something we must tell. So I chose a few “gems”, to make it possible, after all, to smile from time to time:

At the beginning of the month (on Sunday, October 6, 2013), settlers from Havat Ma’on, reinforced by residents from other settlements in the area, tried, again, to enter the Palestinian village of A-Tuwani. (For Operation Dove’s report on the event see here; for a report on another event in A-Tuwani from the recent days see here).

After the event we visited, as we always do, our friend Mus’ab and his family. Mus’ab described in details what happened. I choose to bring the following detail, in his words: “When the soldiers entered the village homes and the mosque, I asked one of them: Why do you allow settlers to go into the village and do as they please. The soldier answered me: you are the settlers, not they.”

But that was a long time ago, at the beginning of the month. Now we are nearing its end.

Again in South Mt. Hebron. We are a special company today – a veterinarian joined us. He saw the documentary “The Human Turbine”, took the trouble to find my phone number, called me and said he wanted to come with us and maybe contribute, from his profession, as a veterinarian.

A soft autumn morning accompanies our ride from Shoval to Wadi Jheish, where we began our visit.

There, Gabi, the veterinarian, meets Ibrahim. We enter Ibrahim’s pen. He has a big herd of sheep and goats. A professional talk, fascinating and efficient, takes place between the two, with Ibrahim asking and Gabi consulting. Danny and I are there with them, enjoying the simple ability to be a bridge, to bring together, to translate occasionally, when needed, to do life things. The unbearable lightness of being brings a smile of joy to our faces, for a moment. The next moment I get a phone call. Just like that, among sheep and goats, the phone rings. On the screen I see it is a lawyer with Rabbis for Human Rights. The last time I talked with her on the phone was at the beginning of the summer, on the eve of the Supreme Court’s hearing regarding the legal struggle against the demolitions of Susiya and other villages (for background see here).

A moment passes between seeing her name on the screen and pressing the key, to enable the talk. I notice how my heart, refusing to give up the smile and the relief brought by the autumn lingers. That was in the summer, and now it’s autumn, and the smile, and the moment of contentment. I notice how my heart is about to lose a beat. I press the key.

“Erella,” I hear lawyer’s mellow voice on the other side of the line. “hello,” I answer with joy that does not hide the suspense. “How are you?” she asks and I answer: “Ok, and how are you?”, “Ok,” she answers and continues: “Listen, I wanted to let you know that a message has arrived from the High Planning Council of the Civil Administration, that it rejected the master plan of Palestinian Susiya. They have 60 days to appeal to the High Court of Justice.” “What does it mean?” I ask. “Look, we’re going to take a few more legal actions, but this whole legal struggle has almost exhausted itself. They [in the Planning Council] didn’t send me the rejection’s details yet. This will arrive in few days time. It seems that the reasons for the rejection are political, but I am interested in the legal explanation they will come up with.  I will send it to you as soon as it arrives.” So said lawyer, and I am in Ibrahim’s sheep pen at the very moment when Gabi is showing him how to set a broken leg of one of the sheep properly. “If you set the place of the fracture properly, the fracture will heal after two weeks,” says Gabi to Ibrahim. “Let her go with the herd, it will heal while she walks,” he adds.

We also, continue to go. From Ibrahim to Yusuf in Susiya. He has a big herd and he, too, has questions. And from him to Jihad in Susiya (see the photos attached).

We also continue to go with a fracture. But somehow, this fracture doesn’t heal in two weeks. And not in one year. This fracture has loads of fracture years. Someone takes care to set it so it will always remain fractured. We try to mend. The veterinarian can do it in two weeks. We cannot.

Just two stories from the month of October.

We will continue to go there, and in there, also during the month of November. We will continue to do what needs to be done in order to mend.

With much love,

Erella (on behalf of the Villages Group)

Gabi with Yusuf

Gabi with Ibrahim

Gabi at Jihad’s place