Breaking the Silence tour to South Hebron

one area of Palestine Sosia, out of hundreds of families living here, only ten are left in sosia.

The process of evicting Palestinian families is describe to us this way. a couple of settlers come to an area with tents. the military ask them to leave and when they refuse the military sets up a little post in the settlement under the pretext of defending them. the occupation forces move from here to making an area of two to three kilometers restricted to Palestinians. Meaning, all the land that was worked by Palestinian, or tents that they live on, becomes an illegal area to be on. all through the West Bank this "security Zone" around settlement allows the Israeli military to evict and deny Palestinians the right to work. more, according to Israeli law if you own a land and it is not worked for over a year the state has the right to take it over. so although this is a Palestinian land according to international law, after a year where the Palestinians cant work their land because of the restrictions put up by the Israeli military, the Israeli state takes the land, and rent it (for very cheep) to the settlers to work. after a couple of years the settlers can buy the land from the state.
to expedited their plan of taking over the area, the settlers use violence and harassment against the Palestinian farmers. The Palestinians who would like to make a complained against the settlers need to do that in another sattelment in Hebron, that they are not allowed into.

this program of eviction, that takes place all through the West Bank, accompanied with the fact the Palelistians in areas such as the Hebron city are under curfew for months at a time, has created new refugee camps. the area in the picture became populated in the recent years by Palestinians who are forced to leave their homes that are near settlements.

another settlement. again, two houses that has caused the eviction of tens of Palestinian families. this settlement is called "Lucifer farm" (for real!). the founder of this settlement is Yaakov Talya, a South African who was military adviser to the South Africa army during the apartheid years. in 94, after the ending of apartheid, Talya moved to Israel, converted and is now a defense adviser to the settlers living in the area.
at this point one of our tour guider talks to us about how as soldier he was orders to evict Palestinian families from the area. his unite simply showed up with a couple of trucks and gave the Palestinians a couple of hours to pack all their possessions, put them on the trucks, and unloaded the families and their belonging a couple of miles away. the homes, farms, trees, were all destroy. he finishes his story, and I'm filled with anger at the old him that was too young and brainwashed to stop this crime from happening. but at the end we all, Israelis and American are equally guilty.

we stop to visit one of the last Palestinian families to still live in the Sosia area (although they have been uprooted and evicted many times). Mohammad Nawe describe to us the constant harassment by the military and the settlers. the occupation forces who declare their houses illegal and demolish their tents, water holes, and arrest people. and the settlers who shoot sheeps, and throw Molotov cocktails at their tents.

tents where the Nawe family lives

this used to be cave that was converted to a little house. the military demolished it a couple of months ago.

a new house is built.

a water hole that was used to collect rain was also demolish by the Israely military.