2 September 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
Demolishing tents donated by the UN
Caterpillar Bulldozer demolishing tents donated to the residents of Susiya as emergency aid by the U.N.
On August 28 Israeli occupation forces demolished tents donated by the United Nations (UN) in the Palestinian village of Susiya in the South Hebron hills. This is the second similar demolition within three months.
Caterpillar Bulldozer demolishing tents donated to the residents of Susiya as emergency aid by the U.N.
Displacement in Zenuta
Israeli bulldozers entered the Palestinian village of Zenuta in the South Hebron Hills Tuesday morning and demolished water cisterns, residential dwellings, and sheep stables, devastating the small community of only 7 families.
In total, 4 water cisterns, 2 caves, 2 houses, and 6 stables were destroyed. Zenuta is a small village of 7 families with a herd of 400 sheep. The army destroyed the houses of 2 families, each with 7children, as well as 6 stables holding sheep.
Perhaps most devastating of all in a region starved for water, the army bulldozed the village’s cisterns, holding water collected from winter rains. The cisterns cost NIS 15,000 each, an incredible toll amounting to about a year and half’s wages for the average Palestinian worker in the area. For more information click here.
Palestinian children n front of their destroyed home in Zenuta, August 28 2012 (Operation Dove)
Displacement in the Judean Desert
On the 29 of August, 4 Bedouin families were targeted. They live far inside the Judean Desert, east of Deis Salah and near Bethlehem. They also faced demolitions 2 months ago. All their structures were demolished including tents provided by international agencies. Israeli authorities said they had to leave because they lived in the Israeli firing zone 914.
Abu Sarah is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
On the morning of August 28, around 30 settlers armed with guns and sticks descended upon a Palestinian home located in Khan al-Liban, and attacked the Daraghmah family. The mother, Taghrid, and the two youngest sons, Mu’min, 13, and Nour al-Deen, 9, were injured during the attacks which lasted at least one hour until soldiers and police arrived. Mu’min and Nour were taken by ambulance to the hospital. The father of the family, Khalid, 45, and his second eldest son, Jalaal, 16, were arrested and are still being held in police custody.
At around 8:30 a.m. settlers from Ma’ale Levona arrived at the home of the Daraghmah family. The father, Khalid, two of his sons, Mu’min and Jalaal, and his wife, Taghrid, were sitting in the entry way. The youngest son, Nour, was asleep inside the main room. According to Mu’min, Taghrid went inside the main room, and was followed by 10 settlers. The settlers began attacking Taghrid, Khalid, and Nour inside the room.
“Nour was thrown at the wall by one of the big settlers, and they were laughing” Mu’min recounts.
Nour al-Deen being treated in the ambulance after the attacks. (Photo courtesy of Wafa – International Communities Against Israel).
After they attacked Nour, one of the men began beating Taghrid.
“The settler hit me on the shoulder with a stick, then grabbed me by the collar, and after that ripped my jacket and shirt. Then he began hitting me on the chest, my legs, and finally my hip.” Says Taghrid, who has just returned from Nablus after filing a police report and retreiving the medical reports about her two injured sons.
Taghrid Daraghmah shows how her clothes were torn during the attack. (Photo courtesy of Wafa – International Communities Against Israel).
According to Mu’min says that as the violence escalated, Jalaal and Khalid tried to defend the rest of their family by forcing the settlers outside the bedroom into the entry way. Then the settlers then began beating him, his father, and Jalaal with sticks as they attempted to push them away from the bedroom. Khalid picked up two stones and the settlers began firing into the air, and throwing stones at him.
Mu’min went with Nour and his mother to the roof of the home to escape the continuing attacks. As Khalid and Jalaal were being attacked in the house, settlers began destroying the bedroom, and threw the family’s clothes into the spring next to the house, while Mu’min filmed with his phone.
“After we had been on the roof for awhile, my father and Jalaal ran away from the house, so that the settlers would follow them. When they were far enough away I put my mother and Nour in the bedroom and locked them in so that they would be safe. Then the settlers began firing into the air and throwing stones at the windows to the bedroom.” Mu’min says.
The attacks continued for some time, with Mu’min, Jalaal, and Khalid being beaten. Taghrid says she heard laughing and yelling in Arabic that they planned to cut down all the trees on the land and put Jalaal in prison. During the attacks Khalid’s car was destroyed, with all the windows being smashed, one of the doors broken and the electrical wires ripped out.
Khalid’s car sits with all of the windows smashed after the attack. For more pictures of the aftermath please click here.
In a video, posted on Ynet news, viewers can see the Daraghmah family surrounded by settlers carrying sticks. Jalaal swings what appears to a pick at a settler who tries to enter the bedroom of the home. The Daraghmah family car is also present in the video, without any damage, before it was destroyed. The headline of the Ynet story reads “Settler attacked with axe”.
According to Taghrid, around an hour after the settlers, 5 Israeli soldiers arrived, and immediately arrested Jalaal after settlers accused him of hitting them. Khalid was detained in one of the rooms by the police. An ambulance arrived to take Mu’min and Nour to the hospital, and Khalid was taken by Police to Sha’ar Binyamin after being accused of interfering with Police work. No settler were arrested.
Khalid Daraghmah being arrested by Israeli Police. (Photo courtesy of EAPPI).
In 2002 the Israeli High Court ruled that the land in Khan belongs to their family, but settlers claim it is a public spring. For the past four years, Khalid al-Sanih Daraghmah and his family have faced regular attacks by Israeli settlers at their home in Khan, 2 kilometers south of the West Bank village al-Luban. When Khalid bought the two homes on the road to the illegal Ma’ale Levona settlement 5 years ago, he imagined restoring them and planting the 20 dunums of land that they sit on.
More information on the constant settler attacks against the Darahmah family can be found here, here, and here.
Marshall Pinkerton is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
21 July 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
In the peaceful landscape of the South Hebron Hills, the occupation of the land is a daily struggle. Whilst life seems to be quiet and smooth the Palestinian communities often have to forget their daily life problems to focus on a bigger issue: resisting expulsion from their land.
As does 60% of the Palestinian West Bank, the South Hebron Hills lies in Area C, meaning it is under complete Israeli civil and military control. Palestinians residing in Area C live under harsh conditions, facing land confiscations, house demolitions, and access to water and electricity.
Furthermore, a 7.5 acre area within the district of Masafer Yatta, including 12 Palestinian villages, were designated in the late 1970s by the Israeli Occupation Forces as ‘Firing Zone 918’, a closed military zone. In 1999, evacuation orders were issued to remove the inhabitants of the villages, claiming that they are non-permanent residents and ignoring their ancient culture.
In Al Mufagarah, the 15 families are living in caves, tents, and a few stones houses. As their ancestors have been doing for ages, the families farm and graze. Its population, originally from the nearby village of At-Tuwani moved 4 kilometres south to set up the village of Al Mufagarah by the end of the British Mandate. At first, it seemed that nothing had changed. Secluded on a hillside, Al Mufagarah is accessible only by a rough dirt road. It stands quiet, facing the Naqab desert.
Its 160 residents, as do the 12 other hamlets of the firing zone, maintain a unique way of life with many living in or beside dug caves. Studies have shown that cave dwellers have been living in the southern Hebron hills since at least the 1830s. As families expanded, they build tents and a few stones houses. The community relies for its livelihood on growing grain and olives, husbandry of sheep and goats, and on the production of milk and cheese.
“Unfortunately, nowadays, we are facing issues my grand-father would have never expected!” said Mahmoud. “We started building a few stones houses in the ’80s; but then, with the expansion of the 4 nearby settlements, the Israeli Civil Administration wouldn’t deliver building permits anymore.
Even though in 2007, I decided to build a 60m² bricks house on the top of my cave because it is too small for my wife and my 14 children. But the 24th November 2011, the Israeli bulldozers came and destroyed my house as well as the mosque and the container for the collective power generator.”
Most of the villages of the South Hebron Hills have been forcibly displaced or demolished, often times with the building of new settlements. Moreover, according to the Israeli non-governmental organization Peace Now, between 2000 and September 2007, 94% of the building permits requested in Area C by Palestinians were turned down. While only 91 permits were issued to Palestinians, 18,472 new homes were built, illegally by international law, in order to expand the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which currently house 400,000 settlers.Heavy restrictions on freedom movement, work and business isolate these communities and have increased poverty among the population.
Furthermore, the closed area has no physical infrastructure. There are no paved roads leading from the villages. They are not linked to a power grid, telephone lines, a running-water system, or a sewage system. The normal water supply is rain, saved from the rainy season. Although the water table in the area is healthy enough to be able to build a well, the military does not permit this. Even building a structure for rainwater catchment is forbidden. As the rain water does not last through the dry season and the inhabitants have to spend roughly 10-15% of their income to buy water, brought by tanker from an Israeli company, Yatta.
The community attempted a few years ago to run electrical lines from At-Tuwani village but it was, as always, shut down by the military. Nowadays, only Mahmoud has a small power generator that he uses strictly from 7-10 p.m., and all activities needing electricity are coordinated into this time. This includes using the washing machine, charging cellular phones and flashlights, as well as watching their favourite soap opera.
“We are harassed on a daily base by settlers, soldiers, police, and border police. But I am determined to behave the opposite way of their actions. We will get Al Mufagarah back on the map and bring its people from the caves within to the outside in houses,” Mahmoud says.
On 19 May 2012, the community of Al Mufagarah, supported by the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, launched a campaign called ‘Al Mufagarah R-Exist’, to build 15 bricks houses. Every Saturday since the launching, Palestinian, Israeli, and International activists have gathered to build the houses and support the community in its struggle to remain on its land.
On June 10, after only 3 houses had been completed, Al Mufagarah received orders from the Israeli Civil Administration to halt construction. On July 16, a demolition order was received concerning the first house built, which should be implemented within 3 days.
Like Susya and many other villages from Area C, the existence of this community is jeopardized.
They need your support: advocate, lobby, donate, demonstrate.
VLR is a photojournalist based in Palestine since 2011 reporting life under occupation.
This article was originally published with an error in the name of the village Al Mufagarah. It was corrected from Um Fagarah to Al Mufagarah on 30 July 2012.
April 6th Demonstration - Click here for more photos
I’m a bit slow at writing things up, so in the meanwhile, here are some photos of this past Friday’s action in Ni’lin. To me the the most vivid pictures were the shebab, including boys who looked as young as 12 , symbolically lobbing stones at and over the gate and wall (probably not visible in my photos), amid clouds of stinging teargas and stinking “skunk water,” and Mohammed Amira calmly standing with his megaphone addressing the soldiers in Hebrew (telling them to go home to their families, and basically trying to get them to reflect on what they’re doing), while himself being sprayed with teargas and targeted with skunk water (they missed him with the “skunk,” as far as I could tell as we returned to his home for cold drinks and a rest, and didn’t notice the tell-tale stench of sewage he would have been carrying if hit.
Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement.
Land Day, which began in 1976, marks the day Israeli forces killed six Palestinians during a protest against Israeli occupation of what Palestinians consider to be their land. Palestinians around the world will commemorate Land Day with protests and demonstrations.
