Susiya cave dwellers and Bush in the White House
A part of our task in Hebron is to be present in the villages situated on the hills of the Southern Hebron area. In this area, the Palestinians experience harassment from the settlers nearby, their homes are threatened by demolition orders, and the people with expulsion from their own land.
In the 1830s, poor Palestinian families left their villages in the southern Hebron region and bought land 20 kilometres away. They lived in caves spread out across the area and gained their livelihood from the mountains and fields surrounding them. A few generations later, these families developed a culture and a way of living based on sheep herding, agriculture and cave dwelling. The Israeli authorities have been confiscating their land, first for military purposes, and then to build settlements.
After a one hour taxi drive to Yatta, south of Hebron, we wait for Nasser who lives in Susiya, a Palestinian village in the mountains south of Hebron. The cave dwelling Palestinian society in Susiya was originally concentrated around an archaeological site with ruins from the Byzantine, Roman and Hellenistic period, in addition to an old Jewish synagogue from the second temple period. Jewish settlers established the settlement of Susiya in 1983, two kilometres southeast of the archaeological site. They took control of the area in 1985 and they expelled the Palestinian community from their original caves in 1986. The Palestinians settled down around 500 metres from the Israeli settlement, known as Rujum. This was too close for the settlers and one night in 1990, Israeli soldiers escorted the Palestinians onto trucks and dropped them around 15 kilometres further north.
The families became spread out across the area; some of them even managed to return to Susiya and worked their own land again, but inevitably, tensions with the settlers grew. Under the protection of the Israeli army, the Jewish settlers managed to grab more and more land belonging to the Palestinian inhabitants of Susiya. They have become increasingly violent in their actions, preventing Palestinian farmers from working on their own land and harassed and terrorized the cave dwellers. The Israeli army has destroyed properties belonging to Susiya. In 1991, three Palestinian inhabitants were killed as a result of fighting over the land. In July 2001, a settler was killed. While Israeli soldiers had previously driven the Palestinians away without major damage to their property, it was a different story in 2001. Several Palestinians were beaten and/or arrested, caves were destroyed, wells ruined, fields and olive trees destroyed and cattle killed. *
Nasser and his brother pick us up in a white van with loose seats. On our way to Susiya we have to stop to buy new tires. They are constantly worn out due to the bad roads, Nasser informs us. We drive for half an hour on bumpy roads, full of rocks, with fields and mountains all around, before we cross a bigger road, and get to a gathering of tents. Inside the kitchen tent, we meet Nasser’s mother and one of his sisters. They serve us tea and we sit together around the fireplace. Even though they do not speak much English, and we only a bit Arabic, we manage to communicate somehow and we laugh a lot!
Later we go for a walk in the area with Abed Rahman, who is fourteen years old. We meet Bush (a puppy) and his White House (the doghouse)! The sheep have their own tent where they relax. Abed Rahman takes us through a field with olive trees before we get to another field where we were supposed to find more olive trees, but all that is left are the cut off roots of 26 olive trees. He tells us that the settlers up on the mountain had cut these trees down only a few weeks ago. We can see the soldiers on top of the mountain, who are there to protect the settlers.
In September 2001, with the help of the Israeli lawyer Schlomo Lecker, the inhabitants went to the Israeli High Court of Justice with a demand that the Israeli authorities allow them to return to their land. The court decided that the expulsion was illegal and instructed the army to let the inhabitants return to their land until the court reached a new decision concerning the situation. The following day, the Israeli soldiers refused to let the inhabitants of Susiya return to their land. They declared the area a closed military zone. In spite of that, a few managed to return, however and for the fourth time, the Israeli soldiers were able to expel some of them again.
The inhabitants of Susiya are not allowed to rebuild the destroyed ruins of their homes, and therefore they live in tents and shacks in both summertime and wintertime. The main road is closed off and even ambulances do not have right of access. In 2004, the Israeli High Court of Justice decided that the Israeli army is not allowed to destroy and evacuate the inhabitants from Susiya. They suggested that their lawyer should try to get building permits from the Civil Administration, which mainly consists of settlers. Israel is now claiming that the Palestinians live illegally on their own land because after the expulsion from Susiya, they have rebuilt their dwellings without the proper building permits. That is why their homes must, once more, be demolished.
After our second tea time, we walk to a place further up the mountain to where three Israeli peace activists are digging a well together with Nasser and his brothers. It has not rained much during the last few months and the families, fields and animals need water. One of them tells us that it is almost impossible to dig as deep as needed in order to get ground water, therefore they are now digging a well out of what used to be an old wine press, in order to collect rainwater. The father in the family, Abu Jihad, comes over to us carrying a big tray of food and a kettle of soup. We all sit down and eat together in the windy mountain, before we have a third cup of tea with the family in their small village, and then head back up the stony road and on our way back to Hebron.
(* Report on Susiya from UNOCHA, June 2007)
