Demolishing

As soon as we stepped out of the car in the Masafer Yatta village of Um al Khair, we got the news that an international visitor had just been arrested for complaining to police about an Israeli flag that had been stuck in some rocks in the village by nearby settlers. Yesterday, a house had been bulldozed by military order.

Demolishing the homes of Palestinians has been a mainstay of the decades-long ethnic cleansing campaign in the West Bank. Lately, this South Hebron Hills village has been an intense target for this strategy. Israel has its eye on this area and all of its small villages for a new onslaught of settlements. It’s a beautiful landscape with rolling hills and scenic vistas. You can see why it is such a desirable place to steal. The village itself is small - only 13 families, 200 people live here. But it’s proving to be tough to get rid of.

We met with a very personable and quite brilliant resident of the village who served as our guide. He had come here as a refugee from the Negev and now was facing the prospect of another displacement. He filled us in on what’s been happening there and walked us around the village. He asked us to spread the word.

Immediately next to Um al Khair is a settlement of some 500 Israeli families that is doing everything it can to run the Palestinians off. Just a couple of days ago, settler teenagers herded their sheep right into someone’s home. The teens are evidently front-line vigilantes, as they roam around with sticks and pepper spray making life tense for people of the village. Not long ago they beat 5 women. The women needed to go to the hospital right away, but the settlers blocked the ambulance from getting to them for over 5 hours. Soldiers were present, but did nothing to stop the “very violent boys,” as our guide called them.

Whenever the villagers complain to the police about such attacks, the police say they have been told by the settlers that the teens are being attacked by the Palestinians. The police threaten to arrest the villagers if they keep making these calls.

We walked over to the demolished house where a couple of young men were sitting, looking sadly at the ruins. Three rooms and a water tank were all jumbled up in piles. One of the men told us his 60-year old mother, who owned the house, had been thrown to the ground when she yelled about her house being destroyed. The military commander of the nearby base had given the demolition order, with the rationale that the home was blocking the military view of the area. Bogus, of course. Home demolition is a standard practice for the Israeli regime.

We were told that Israeli law forbids people from rebuilding a demolished home in the same site, so they are already talking about rebuilding in a slightly different location. There is a settler organization in Israel named Regavin that flies drones over newly demolished homes to report to the military if Palestinians attempt to rebuild their homes in the same place. Meanwhile, the family has moved in with their its next door neighbor.

Our guide talked about the trauma of it all, especially for the kids. He said, “It is very hard for us to live in this condition. These people are not neighbors, they don’t care about us at all. They treat their dogs better than they treat us.” He worried about the mental health of his five young daughters and all of his friends living there.

We were walked down to the paved road that was put in for the settlement. It was put over a dirt road that had been there since Jordan controlled this territory many years ago. Israel now defined the paved road as the border of the village, beyond which they and their goats and sheep were not allowed to “trespass.” Also known as stealing their land. They also put a gate at the beginning of the road so that they can close off entry and exit into the village whenever they choose.

We walked past some sapling trees, supplied by the Jewish National Fund, that settlers had just planted right next to villagers’ houses. Of course, the purpose of the trees is to establish a claim to the land.

We saw the electric lines leading to the settlement and to their large chicken house. The villagers can’t use that electricity - they have power only from a small number of solar panels. We also saw the water pump from which they are allowed to draw from only 2 days a week, for a total of 6 hours. We saw the surveillance camera up on a pole overlooking the village. “They are watching us all the time,” our guide said. 

We were told about the military firing range that was placed right nearby that carries the sounds of gunfire to them on a regular basis. 

All of this is one big systematic slow motion ethnic cleansing campaign, designed to push Palestinians off their land. The intention is not just to demolish homes, land rights, and mental health. It’s meant to demolish hope.

But our guide assured us that they haven’t given up defending their land. He said, “Let’s keep hope. Without it, we will die.” 

This is sumud.