Palestinian village undergoing 'ethnic cleansing' by Israel

[Little Tich]

57. Wikipedia: Susya

Source: Wikipedia
(snip)

Modern Era
Palestinian Susya, called Susya al-Qadima ('Old Susya') is a centuries' old village which written records attest the existence of from 1830. It is constituted of permanent cave homes. The construction the Israeli settlement in the neighbourhood of Palestinian Susya, called Susya Al-Qadime, their ownership of which land has been established in law, and which was located near the ancient synagogue, was decided by Israel and the World Zionist Organization in 1982, as part of 8 new settlements. In June 1986, Israel expropriated the village's residential ground for "public use", for an 'archeological park', evicting villagers from their homes and lands. The expelled Susyans settled in cave and tin shacks 500 metres away, at a site now called Rujum al-Hamri, to restart their lives. According to David Shulman, for some decades they were subject, to many violent attacks, and settler recourse to both civil and military courts, to drive them out. The BBC broadcast film of settler youths beating an old woman and her family with cudgels to drive them away from their land, in 2008.

Since then the local villages, like Palestinian Susya, have been losing land, and being cut off from each other, as the nearby settlements of Carmel, Maon, Susya and Beit Yatir began to be built and developed, and illegal outposts established. David Dean Shulman described the reality he observed in 2008:

Susya: where thirteen impoverished families are clinging tenaciously,but probably hopelessly, to the dry hilltop and the few fields that are all that remain of their vast ancestral lands.

The second expulsion took place in 1990, when Rujum al-Hamri's inhabitants were loaded onto trucks by the IDF and dumped at the Zif Junction, 15 kilometres northwards a roadside at the edge of a desert. Most returned and rebuilt on a rocky escarpment within their traditional agricultural and grazing territory. Their wells taken, they were forced to buy water from nearby Yatta. Israel sheep-herding settlers expanded their unfenced land use at Mitzpe Yair and the Dahlia Farm. According to B'tselem, by 2010 settlers were cultivating roughly 40 hectares, about 15% of the land area to which they deny access to the traditional Palestinian users of that area. Since 2000 Jewish settlers in Susiya have denied Palestinians access to 10 cisterns in the area, or according to more recent accounts,. and try to block their access to others. Soil at Susya, with a market value of NIS 2,000 per truckload, is also taken from lands belonging to the village of Yatta.

The third expulsion occurred in June 2001, when settler civilians and soldiers drove the Palestinians of Susya out, without warning, with, reportedly violent arrests and beatings, destroying their tents and caves, blocking their cisterns, killing their livestock and digging up their agricultural land. The settlers established a "Dahlia Farm" in the same year, and an outpost was set up on the archeological site. On Sept 26 of the same year, by an order of the Israeli Supreme Court, these structures were ordered to be destroyed and the land returned to the Palestinians. Settlers and the IDF prevented the villagers from reclaiming their land, some 750 acres. The villagers made an appeal to the same court to be allowed to reclaim their lands and live without harassment. Some 93 events of settler violence were listed. The settlers made a counter-appeal, and one family that had managed to return to its land suffered a third eviction. Land next to the Palestinian village of Susya was confiscated from the village of Yatta, from which a dozen local families had been expelled to make way on the pretext of archeological digs, according to one source. A major expansion of the new settlement began on 18 September 1999, when its boundaries expanded northwards and eastwards, with the Palestinian Shreiteh family allegedly losing roughly 150 more dunams.

According to B'tselem, the Palestinians that remain in the area live in tents on a small rocky hill between the settlement and the archeological park which is located within walking distance. According to Amnesty International, ten caves inhabited by Susya Palestinian families were blown up by the IDF in 1996, and some 113 tents were destroyed in 1998. Amnesty International also reports that official documents asking them to leave the area address them generically as 'intruders' (polesh/intruder). Most of the rain-catching water cisterns used by the local Palestinian farmers of Susya were demolished by the Israeli army in 1999 and 2001. A local Susya resident told Amnesty International,

'Water is life ; without water we can’t live; not us, not the animals, or the plants. Before we had some water, but after the army destroyed everything we have to bring water from far away ; it’s very difficult and expensive. They make our life very difficult, to make us leave.'
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Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susya


The information in the Wikipedia article seems to be at least in part corroborated by what's on the B'Tselem website, which has numerous items on the subject:

(Blog):State seeks to demolish about half of the village of Susiya before HCJ hearing (16 Jul 2015)
http://www.btselem.org/facing_expulsion_blog

Civil Administration maps Susiya – residents fear imminent demolition ( 10 May 2015)
http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20150510_civil_administration_mapping_susiya

Khirbet Susiya – a village under threat of demolition (1 Jan 2013)
http://www.btselem.org/south_hebron_hills/susiya


Which side of the story are we to believe? The Israeli side or the Palestinian side?