[News] ‘Unsafe in own home’: Israeli settlers spread terror in South Hebron Hills

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 ‘Unsafe in own home’: Israeli settlers spread terror in South Hebron Hills

*Village after village is under attack, with communities forcibly
displaced. But some are holding on, refusing to move.*
Homes in Khirbet Zanuta dismantled as the community flees from Israeli
settler attacks [Al Jazeera]
By Al Jazeera Staff
<https://www.aljazeera.com/author/al_jazeera_staff_150119130629458>
Published On 3 Nov 2023
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/3/unsafe-in-own-home-israeli-settlers-spread-terror-in-south-hebron-hills
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*Khirbet Zanuta, occupied West Bank —* Amin Hamed al-Hadhrat took a break
from taking down his family’s home in the South Hebron Hills, crying. “I
know in a day or two I’m going to live somewhere else, but I still can’t
imagine it happening,” the 37-year-old said. “All I know is living here.
All my father knew was living here. I don’t know what it is like to live
anywhere else.”

This week, al-Hadhrat’s village of shepherds, Khirbet Zanuta, joined the
growing swell of Palestinian Bedouin villages forcibly emptied since
October 7 due to violent attacks from armed Israeli settlers often wearing
Israeli military uniforms.

Khirbet Zanuta is located in the South Hebron Hills region in Area C of the
occupied West Bank, which is under full Israeli military control. The
founding of Meitarim Farm, an Israeli outpost located 100 metres away on
the next hill, in 2021 had made life hard for the community, according to
residents. Settler violence prevented the shepherds from allowing their
livestock to graze.

Such attacks have escalated dramatically since October 7, say Palestinian
villagers, Israeli activists and international organisations. The United
Nations has said that the daily rate of settler violence incidents in the
West Bank has more than doubled, up from three to an average of seven in
this period. And while the Gaza Strip has borne the brunt of Israel’s
devastating bombardment since the Hamas attack on southern Israel, with
more than 9,000 Palestinians killed in the besieged enclave, attacks by
settlers and Israeli forces have also killed more than 130 Palestinians
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker>
in the West Bank.

Settlers usually come in the night, destroying water tanks, piping and
electrical systems; breaking windows and cars. Most alarming to Khirbet
Zanuta residents was when armed settlers began entering homes to beat
Palestinian shepherds. On October 27, settlers told residents that if they
did not leave in 24 hours, they would be killed.

“There’s a difference between feeling unsafe when you go grazing and
feeling unsafe even in your own home,” said al-Hadhrat. Worried for the
safety of their children and themselves, the community decided they must
leave.

So this past week, the dusty village of 150 people took down their
hardscrabble homes made of tin or stones, packing their belongings onto
pick-up trucks, bit by bit. While the adults were busy packing haystacks
and iron rods, sorting through flour and animal feed, a little girl sat on
the barren ground, playing with pebbles. A boy attempted to pick up iron
bars to pitch in. Another child simply sat on a rock, wiping tears from his
eyes.

All the while, drones launched by nearby settlers buzzed above the village,
surveilling the dismantlement.
[image: Amin Al-Hadhrat [Steven Davidson/Al Jazeera]]Amin al-Hadhrat at
Khirbet Zanuta [Al Jazeera] ‘We can’t sleep’

Sameh, a man in his early 40s, took a break to smoke a cigarette. His
little girl, Deema, sat on his lap, swinging her legs back and forth. They
were trying to stay in good spirits.

Sameh had decided to bring his family to the edge of a nearby town, he
explained. “We will walk [by foot] for one or two hours over the mountains
to avoid settler attacks on the road,” he said.

But each moment leading up to their departure grew heavier. “We can’t eat.
We can’t sleep. We can’t think right now,” he said.

Without any specific place to go to, the community is splitting up to seek
refuge in different places – and, as for recent displacements
<https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2023/6/4/better-to-die-there-palestinians-mourn-ein-samiya-eviction>,
their shepherding way of life will likely be impossible to continue.

Al-Hadhrat reminisced of spending long nights with friends on their quiet,
windswept hill underneath the stars, drinking coffee and sharing stories.
“It’s hard to imagine how we will keep in touch. Maybe we’ll see each other
in the market or something,” he mused. His bloodshot eyes grew even
glossier. “It’s so difficult to think that the community is breaking apart.
I don’t think we will be able to stay in touch in a meaningful way.”
[image: Zanouta packing with outpost in background [Steven Davidson/Al
Jazeera]]The community in Zanuta packing, with the Israeli settler outpost
in the background [Al Jazeera] A domino effect

Khirbet Zanuta is only the latest Bedouin village
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/silent-annexation-settlers-dispossess-west-bank-bedouins-amid-israel-war>
that’s been wiped off the West Bank landscape since October 7 — and it
won’t be the last. As al-Hadhrat and his community packed up, the village
of A’Nizan down the road decided they would dismantle their homes, too.
Though facing attacks while grazing, they had not yet received the kinds of
home attacks Amin and others had endured these past few weeks. But
A’Nizan’s 35 inhabitants knew that Khirbet Zanuta’s departure meant they
were next in the settlers’ crosshairs.

According to the latest figures provided by the United Nations Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least 864 Palestinians,
including 333 children, have been forcibly displaced as a result of attacks
from Israeli settlers in this period, with 11 communities fully displaced
and another 11 communities at least partially forcibly transferred. Almost
half  of at least 186 violent settler incidents resulting in casualties or
property damage have been in the presence of, or supported by, Israeli
forces. Settlers have used weapons in almost a third of these incidents.

This rate of displacement has not been seen since the removal of thousands
of Bedouins from areas in the Sinai peninsula in 1972 by Israel. The
concentration of forcible displacement that began in the remote area east
of Ramallah has now spread to the South Hebron Hills, abutting the border
between the southern West Bank and Israel proper.

Unlike the communities displaced in the area east of Ramallah recently,
communities of the South Hebron Hills often live on privately owned land.
They have tighter local networks, with ties to international organisations
and solidarity groups, making it harder for them to be dislodged from their
properties.

But settler attacks have only intensified in their bid to remove this rural
yet strategically important area — which allows the maintenance of a
contiguous Palestinian presence on both sides of the Green Line, which
divides Israel from the West Bank.

Since the war started, many of the regular Israeli soldiers patrolling the
region have gone to Gaza, replaced by settlers from nearby settlements and
outposts in uniform. As Yehuda Shaul, a former Israeli military commander
and co-founder of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli NGO comprising
dissenting army veterans, explained, these settlers come from local
regional defence units: typically the first-response teams of settlements.

“You have settlers that, half a year ago, came and beat [Palestinians] up
as civilians, and now they are in [military] uniform with guns, and they
come to beat you up,” said Shaul. “And you don’t know: is this part of
their military assignment? Or are they just doing it in their free time?”
[image: Soldiers enter Susiya [Steven Davidson/Al Jazeera]]Israeli soldiers
enter the village of Susiya [Al Jazeera] ‘Closing their eyes’

Whatever the answer, these attacks are bringing the settlers’ longstanding
goals to fruition, say activists and affected communities.

“For years, the settlers have been pressuring the state to expel
Palestinians from Area C,” said Nasser Nawajeh, the spokesperson of the
village of Susiya and the South Hebron Hills field researcher for Israeli
human rights organisation B’Tselem. “Now, they are just doing it
themselves. Even if the state doesn’t send them to do that, the army and
authorities are closing their eyes and acting like it doesn’t happen.”

In the village of Jinba, settlers were filmed forcefully taking down the
speakers of their mosque. In the village of Um al-Khair, a settler in
uniform drove through the village aiming his weapon at anyone who dared to
be on the street or on their balcony, demanding they go inside the house.
On October 27, said Nawajeh, two settlers in military uniforms stopped a
car full of Palestinians in Um al-Khair, forced them out of the car, and
shot the car’s engine and its windows.

Three days later, settlers returned to the village, collecting all the men
at gunpoint, forcing them to stand along a wall and checking their phones.
When they saw photos of a Palestinian policeman in uniform and with a gun,
they attacked him. After finding a local activist, they forced him at
gunpoint to make statements against his will on film. Um al-Khair was also
given a 24-hour ultimatum to vacate.

Settlers have come to the village of Tuba on different days to destroy the
village’s electrical and water systems and vandalise homes. On October 30,
settlers came to the village of Sfai, setting houses on fire.

While some attacks are documented with videos or photos, Bedouins across
Area C describe far more incidents that go undocumented. In recent weeks,
numerous accounts describe settlers and those in military uniforms
confiscating Palestinians’ phones, deleting any photos or videos of settler
attacks. In Tuba, settlers even set a Palestinian’s phone on fire.
[image: Israeli activist entertaining Susiya kids [Steven Davidson/Al
Jazeera]]An Israeli activist entertaining children in Susiya [Al Jazeera] Leave
In 24 Hours, or be killed

On October 28, the Bedouin village of Susiya
<https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2023/9/21/the-palestinian-women-refusing-to-let-their-village-be-demolished>,
less than a kilometre from the Green Line, was attacked. Settlers told the
villagers they must leave in 24 hours, or they would be killed.

“They basically come, they assault, they attack, and when you try to speak
to them, they tell you to shut up,” said Nawajeh. “Then, before they leave,
they give you the ultimatum.”

Despite the attacks and threats, the villagers of Susiya say they will
remain on their land. The village has grown over the years to become a
symbol of “sumud”, or steadfastness. They’ve faced physical attacks on
themselves, their homes, water sources, livestock and agriculture from
settlers. But they have refused to move.

That profile has brought international solidarity visits to Susiya for
years, with the European Union Foreign Affairs Council declaring in 2015
that the village’s removal
<https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2015/7/24/defiant-palestinian-bedouins-dread-eviction-from-susiya>
by Israeli authorities would be a red line that must not be crossed.

Since October 7, however, villagers in Susiya report being attacked and
threatened multiple times a day — a new level of assault. Like nearly all
other Bedouin villages in Area C, the army blocked the entrance to the
village, preventing them from going to the nearby city of Yatta to get
supplies. The contractor hired by the military to set up these roadblocks —
a local settler named Yinon Levy, who runs the Meitarim Farm that violently
forced the displacement of villagers from Khirbet Zanuta – decided to also
destroy water cisterns and crops, while sealing a cave used by a family,
according to Nawajeh. In some cases, he said, settlers in military uniforms
have forced his neighbours out of their cars, confiscating their keys.

This week, a letter signed by 30 Israeli human rights and civil society
NGOs, including Amnesty International Israel, B’Tselem, Haqel, Ir Amim,
Kerem Navot, Rabbis for Human Rights and Yesh Din, declared that “the
Israeli government is supportive of these attacks and does nothing to stop
this violence”.

“The only way to stop the forcible transfer in the West Bank,” the NGOs
concluded, “is a clear, strong and direct intervention by the international
community.”

So far, no such intervention seems to be on the horizon. Nonetheless, the
24-hour ultimatum has passed, and Susiya still remains. Several Israeli
activists have stayed with the community to offer protection and support,
though they are unlikely to be able to physically resist heavily armed
settlers.

Meanwhile, the villagers cherish the peaceful moments they still have. One
morning this week, an Israeli woman dressed as a clown blew bubbles with a
little girl to take her mind off the attacks.

Mohammad Nawajeh, Nasser’s father and village elder, looked on at the
little girl playing. “Our future is here,” he declared defiantly. “We will
not leave.”
Source: Al Jazeera
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