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]

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