12th October 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Susiya, Occupied Palestine
Today Palestinians and international activists participated in a Palestinian village community action which involved reaching an area of their land which has been declared a closed military zone. The action also consisted of dismantling a new illegal settlement outpost built by settlers. Over the past month the settler outpost has been dismantled by the Palestinians and rebuilt by settlers three times.
According to Palestinians living in the area, Israeli forces have permanently stationed a military jeep in this area to survey and protect the illegal settler outpost. The illegal outpost is right next to a water well which the Palestinians rely on for daily use and livestock. Each time the Palestinians go near this piece of land the area is declared a closed military zone by Israeli forces and the Palestinians have been prevented from reaching it many times in the past.
Palestinians from the local community and international activists successfully and peacefully dismantled the outpost. A Palestinian child also removed an Israeli flag from a military outpost nearby. Settlers were present in small numbers watching and shouting at the Palestinians and activists. After a short time, the Israeli armed forces forced the Palestinians and international activists to leave the area, declaring it a closed military zone.
27th June 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Susiya, Occupied Palestine
Today, June 27, 2013, the Israeli Civil Administration served thirty-four demolition orders in the Susiya village, which is in Area C and surrounded by the Israeli colony of Suseya. Due to previous demolition orders, every existing structure in the village is now threatened with destruction if they do not obtain permits by July 17.
Original copies of all the demolition orders served today (Photo by ISM)
The residents of Susiya include more than thirty families, who were all evacuated from their homes in the old Susiya village and forced to relocate 200 meters to the southeast, in 1986. Susiya residents collaborate with the nearby villages in Masafer Yatta, a closed military “firing zone,” also in Area C and threatened with demolition. On July 15, a hearing will decide whether all the villages in Masafer Yatta can be evacuated by the military. Hafez Huraini, leader of the South Hebron Hills Popular Committee and himself a refugee from 1948, emphasizes that the villagers in Susiya are targeted simply for existing, so everything they do from grazing sheep to visiting family members in the nearby city of Yatta draws violence from the Israeli military and the local settlers.
Susiya has faced six mass demolitions since the establishment of the Israeli Suseya colony in 1983. The last wave of demolitions in 2011 repeatedly displaced 37 people including 20 children [1]. Residents of Susiya, most of whom rely on subsistence agriculture, are subject to some of the worst living conditions in the West Bank. Their houses were destroyed by Israeli forces and they now live in tents and shelters, paying more than five times the price nearby villages pay for water and consuming less than 1/3 of the WHO standard per capita [2]. Settlers have violently denied Susiya residents access to over 300 hectares of their land, including 23 water cisterns. Documented cases of settler violence include beatings, verbal harassment and destruction of property. Settlers then annex parts of the land by exploiting the Palestinian owners’ inability to access their land.
Of over 120 complaints that have been filed based on monitoring from Rabbis for Human Rights, regarding settler attacks and damage to property, around 95 percent have been closed with no action taken. In 2010, when 55 Susiya residents petitioned the High Court to be granted access to their land, the State responded that it intended to map land ownership of the area. Since then they have only closed to settlers 13% of the land Palestinians have been denied access to, reversing only one incursion [3].
Susiya has been the site of creative non-violent resistance for years, resistance that is continually met with brutality. Events have included marches, picnics on land likely to be confiscated, and Palestinian “outposts.” This coming Saturday Susiya will be part of a festival in the South Hebron Hills aimed at raising awareness about the situation of Masafer Yatta residents and stress their right to remain on their land [4]. In the words of Hafez Huraini, coordinator of the South Hebron Hills Popular Committee, “We will not give up.”
Sources:
[1] Strickland, Patrick O. “Palestine’s Front Line: The Struggle for Susiya.” Palestine Note RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 June 2013.
[2] “Susiya: At Imminent Risk of Forced Displacement.” Susiya: At Imminent Risk of Forced Displacement – OCHA Factsheet (30 March 2012). N.p., Mar. 2012. Web. 27 June 2013.
23th April 2013 | Christian Peacemaker Team, South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine
Israeli soldiers and border police today used a backhoe to uproot 200 young olive trees in the Palestinian village of Susya in the South Hebron Hills. The demolition of the olive grove began at 8:00 am and finished at 10:45 am. The trees destroyed were planted about one year ago on land belonging to three families of the village, across a valley from the Israeli settlement of Susya.
Israeli bulldozer uprooting olive trees (Photo by CPT)
The village of Susya has existed since around 1830, and is present on British maps from 1917. In l983 Israeli settlers built a settlement at Susya, and many of the village’s residents were forced from their homes. These families now live nearby in isolated sites to the north of the settlement. The Israeli Civil Administration has informed residents of Palestinian Susya of their intention to carry out six demolition orders for houses that were issued in the 1990s and in 2001. These demolition orders cover 50 buildings, including homes, animal pens, solar energy panels and water cisterns.
These demolition orders have been issued despite the fact that Palestinian ownership of the land in Palestinian Susya is well established legally. Israeli attorney Plea Albeck stated in a legal opinion in l982 that the land in Palestinian Susya is Palestinian owned. Because the Israeli Civil Administration has not completed a master plan for the region, the residents of Palestinian Susya are unable to obtain building permits.
Since 2001 Israel has, through its military and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, uprooted, burnt and destroyed more than 548,000 olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers and land owners.
Israeli bulldozer about to uproot an olive tree (Photo by CPT)Palestinian woman carrying an olive tree which was going to be uprooted by Israeli forces (Photo by CPT)
On Thursday 31st January the Supreme Court will hold two sessions regarding two petitions affecting the future of the Palestinian village Susiya. One will discuss the organization Regavim’s petition to expedite the demolition of most of the village. The other petition seeks to prevent the villagers’ remaining lands from being rendered off limits to them.
Susiya, a Palestinian village in the south of the West Bank, which is not connected to any water, electricity (sic) or sewage infrastructure, faces imminent demolition. The village’s future remains shrouded in doubt after its original inhabitants were driven from their homes in the 1980’s, when the area was declared a closed archaeological zone, and Palestinians were barred from entering. With no other options and no alternative location, the residents moved to their nearby farmlands, where they could not get building permits.
The first session involves a petition by the far-right organization Regavim, which petitioned the Court together with the nearby Jewish settlement of Susya, to expedite the demolition of most of the buildings in Palestinian Susiya. Such demolition will in all likelihood mean the complete disappearance of the village. The petitioners have also requested and received a temporary injunction that prohibits any further development in the village until a decision is issued. RHR is representing the villagers. The petition was submitted against the Minister of Defense and the inhabitants of Palestinian Susiya.
The second hearing covers a petition by the villagers, with Rabbis for Human Rights, responding to the blockage of about 3,000 dunams of their farmland in the area. The petition names the Minister of Defense, the heads of the Civil Administration, the Chief of the Hebron Police, the Susya Cooperative Association, and the Har Hevron Local Council.
Practices that must end:
A. Unlawful collaboration between Susya settlers, the illegal settlement outposts and the IDF in the area
The Palestinian complainants are unable to access their farmland, as a result of the use of threats and violence by the settlers of Susya and neighboring outposts. The illegal actions of these settlers are executed in collaboration with security forces that remove the complainants from their lands without military orders to do so, or with temporary, one-day orders. Moreover, police enforce the orders against the complainants and their escorts, and fail to properly investigate Palestinian complaints of violence from the settlers’ side and land encroachment. Finally, the Civil Administration refuses to arrange for the complainants to enter the areas from which they have been blocked. The authorities’ behavior is in violation of Israeli, international humanitarian, and human rights law, which require the occupying military government to protect the local Palestinian population and its fundamental rights.
B. Blockage of Palestinians’ entry to their farmlands as usurpation by the settlement
As Palestinians are blocked from accessing their land, Susya residents have gradually encroached on this private land, all the while committing crimes such as attacks, threats, encroachment, malicious property damage, etc. By the time the petition was submitted, settlers from Susya and neighboring outposts had seized about 400 dunams, representing about 15% of the area “prohibited” to Palestinians on their own lands.
This petition therefore makes two demands: to require the respondents to guarantee freedom of movement of the claimants to their lands and to protect the claimants from violence committed by extremist settlers.
Attorney Quamar Mishirqi-Asad, Rabbis for Human Rights:“We fear that the Court will draw an un-based symmetry between the two petitions and reject them both – because prima facie the state and security forces are already addressing the issue, at their own pace: both in demolitions and in blocking access. But in both cases the state is harming Palestinians in a way that is fundamentally unconstitutional, implementing a policy that is contradictory to basic democratic principles. In the first case the state prevents equal planning and representation in planning bodies for the Palestinian residents. In the second, it ignores the harm being done to Palestinians when they attempt to enter their lands; often the security forces collaborate in preventing this access. The Court must know the following: the state is not working to repair what is distorted; it is the very source of the unfair actions against which the Court’s involvement is requested. Both the law enforcement and planning bodies flagrantly discriminate against Palestinians.”
Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Rabbis for Human Rights:“Regavim declares that its goal is ‘to protect the lands of the nation.’ When that slogan is compared to the organization’s actions, its agenda becomes clear: Regavim is petitioning for the destruction of buildings on private Palestinian lands, with ‘planning’ pretexts – indicating that Regavim considers even private Palestinian land to be ‘the lands of the nation’ that should be protected from its lawful owners, whom it considers foreign invaders. That agenda glorifies discrimination and the trampling of rights; it is based on a distorted interpretation of Jewish sources, setting an agenda which debases the giants of Jewish thought who deem such discrimination and theft from non-Jews sinful. Rabbi Akiva himself, in a ruling (that did not apply only to the Diaspora), said that even a non-Jew who fails to uphold the seven Noahide commandments may not be stolen from, oppressed or defrauded, and anything stolen from him must be returned (Bava Kama 113b; Hulin 94a; Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Robbery and Loss 1:2; Laws of Theft 1:1; Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 348:2, 359:1). All of Regavim’s actions must be seen in light of its overarching goal.”
by Wyatt Black 1 December 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank
On the morning of November 28th, numerous soldiers came to the village of Susiya in the South Hebron Hills, unannounced from the nearby settlement, which is also called Susiya. The army jeeps and construction equipment came rolling in around eight o’clock and quickly went to work without giving any information as to why they were invading someone’s private land, and proceeded to demolish a tent in the village.
Esha Ishboal erected a tent two years ago so that his workers could have some shade while picking olives on one of his families’ properties in Susiya, which is south of the city of Al Khalil (Hebron). It was a simple structure, not dirty or old. It had a metal frame and was almost always open on all sides but one, just enough to block some wind. Here Esha would invite his friends to have tea, or as in my case he’d ask a stranger if they would like some hospitality. That was the situation on his farm a couple weeks ago at least.
The table and chairs were spared but the tent itself was leveled. This was an especially lazy demolition since it wouldn’t have taken a bulldozer to bring the tent to the ground. A couple of soldiers could have done it in less than half an hour.
Esha Ishboal looks at the remains of his tent after the demolition
Wyatt Black is a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed)
