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<h1>‘Unsafe in own home’: Israeli settlers spread terror in South Hebron Hills</h1><p class="gmail-article__subhead gmail-css-1wt8oh6"><em>Village after village is under attack, with communities forcibly displaced. But some are holding on, refusing to move.</em></p><div class="gmail-responsive-image"><img src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Zanouta-strucutre-almost-dismantled-1699010394.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80" alt="" width="392" height="261" style="margin-right: 25px;"></div>Homes in Khirbet Zanuta dismantled as the community flees from Israeli settler attacks [Al Jazeera]<div class="gmail-article-info-block gmail-css-ti04u9"><div class="gmail-article-b-l" style="border-color:rgb(250,144,0)"><div class="gmail-article-author-name"><span class="gmail-article-by">By </span><span class="gmail-article-author-name-item"><a class="gmail-author-link" href="https://www.aljazeera.com/author/al_jazeera_staff_150119130629458">Al Jazeera Staff</a></span></div><div class="gmail-article-dates" style="border-color:rgb(250,144,0)"><div class="gmail-date-simple gmail-css-1yjq2zp"><span class="gmail-screen-reader-text">Published On 3 Nov 2023</span></div><div class="gmail-date-simple gmail-css-1yjq2zp"><font size="1"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/3/unsafe-in-own-home-israeli-settlers-spread-terror-in-south-hebron-hills">https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/11/3/unsafe-in-own-home-israeli-settlers-spread-terror-in-south-hebron-hills</a></font><span aria-hidden="true"></span></div></div></div><div class="gmail-social-share-buttons"><a class="gmail-social-share-button" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="Share on Facebook" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2Fbk5iiu"></a></div></div><a class="gmail-social-share-button" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="Share on Twitter" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=%E2%80%98Unsafe%20in%20own%20home%E2%80%99%3A%20Israeli%20settlers%20spread%20terror%20in%20South%20Hebron%20Hills&source=sharethiscom&related=sharethis&via=AJEnglish&url=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2Fbk5iiu"></a><div class="gmail-article-info-block gmail-css-ti04u9"><div class="gmail-social-share-buttons"></div></div><div class="gmail-wysiwyg gmail-wysiwyg--all-content gmail-css-ibbk12"><p><strong>Khirbet Zanuta, occupied West Bank —</strong>
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.”</p>
<p>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.</p><div class="gmail-more-on"><span class="gmail-screen-reader-text"></span></div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker">more than 130 Palestinians</a> in the West Bank.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>All the while, drones launched by nearby settlers buzzed above the village, surveilling the dismantlement.</p>
<img class="gmail-size-arc-image-770 gmail-wp-image-2459364" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Amin-Al-Hadhrat-3-1699010273.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C578&quality=80" alt="Amin Al-Hadhrat [Steven Davidson/Al Jazeera]" width="392" height="294" style="margin-right: 25px;">Amin al-Hadhrat at Khirbet Zanuta [Al Jazeera]
<h2 id="gmail-we-can-t-sleep">‘We can’t sleep’</h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p><p>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.</p>
<p>Without any specific place to go to, the community is splitting up to seek refuge in different places – and, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2023/6/4/better-to-die-there-palestinians-mourn-ein-samiya-eviction">as for recent displacements</a>, their shepherding way of life will likely be impossible to continue.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<img class="gmail-size-arc-image-770 gmail-wp-image-2459379" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Zanouta-packing-with-outpost-in-background-1699010380.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C578&quality=80" alt="Zanouta packing with outpost in background [Steven Davidson/Al Jazeera]" width="392" height="294" style="margin-right: 25px;">The community in Zanuta packing, with the Israeli settler outpost in the background [Al Jazeera]
<h2 id="gmail-a-domino-effect">A domino effect</h2>
<p>Khirbet Zanuta is only the latest <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/silent-annexation-settlers-dispossess-west-bank-bedouins-amid-israel-war">Bedouin village</a>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<img class="gmail-size-arc-image-770 gmail-wp-image-2459377" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Soldiers-enter-Susiya-2-1699010373.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C578&quality=80" alt="Soldiers enter Susiya [Steven Davidson/Al Jazeera]" width="392" height="294" style="margin-right: 25px;">Israeli soldiers enter the village of Susiya [Al Jazeera]
<h2 id="gmail-closing-their-eyes">‘Closing their eyes’</h2>
<p>Whatever the answer, these attacks are bringing the settlers’
longstanding goals to fruition, say activists and affected communities.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<img class="gmail-size-arc-image-770 gmail-wp-image-2459366" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Israeli-activist-entertaining-Susiya-kids-1699010291.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C578&quality=80" alt="Israeli activist entertaining Susiya kids [Steven Davidson/Al Jazeera]" width="392" height="294" style="margin-right: 25px;">An Israeli activist entertaining children in Susiya [Al Jazeera]
<h2 id="gmail-leave-in-24-hours-or-be-killed">Leave In 24 Hours, or be killed</h2>
<p>On October 28, the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2023/9/21/the-palestinian-women-refusing-to-let-their-village-be-demolished">Bedouin village of Susiya</a>,
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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>That profile has brought international solidarity visits to Susiya
for years, with the European Union Foreign Affairs Council declaring in
2015 that the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2015/7/24/defiant-palestinian-bedouins-dread-eviction-from-susiya">village’s removal</a> by Israeli authorities would be a red line that must not be crossed.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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”.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
</div><div class="gmail-article-source">Source: Al Jazeera</div>
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