Umm Al Khaeir

This afternoon, while attending a session on human rights documentation that was put on by a legal group based in the UK, I received a call from our co-ordinator about something that happened this morning in a village not far from Hebron.

Umm Al Khaeir is a tiny village, inhabited by twenty seven families who comprise one hundred thirty people in total. The inhabitants there are Bedouins, and they started the village after the Government of Israel kicked them out of their communities in the Arad Desert. In the early 1980s, Israeli settlers founded a settlement called Carmel, and they built in on the land that the families lived on. To this day, they and the Israeli military are making a concerted effort to displace their neighbours.

Palestinians- Bedouin and non-Bedouin, are often denied permission to build homes in "Area C" of the West Bank, and those who do so illegally have them demolished. The Bedouin living in Umm Al Khaeir, like the people of Susiya who I met last summer ( http://hungryandthirstyforjustice.blogspot.com/2015/07/susya-village-life-in-shadow-of.html), face live in great poverty. They have no electricity and no running water and live in houses that are made of plastic and sheets of metal, while the settlers beside them have nice homes complete with air conditioning and beautiful gardens.
Like the people of Susiya, the people of Umm Al Khaeir have experienced settler attacks with levels of aggression ranging from theft of goats (sounds trivial but it isn't when they are necessary for survival to a community that already is struggling to make ends meet), to beatings of women.
The Israeli Army does not only target the homes of the people of Umm Al Khaeyr. Not only their houses but also areas where animals are kept and even a bakery where bread is produced for the village, are destroyed again and again.

This morning, according to Bilal, one of the villagers who showed us around, ten Israeli jeeps arrived in the village, with five soldiers in each jeep. The soldiers got out, and ordered everyone to sit on the ground. Then they destroyed five homes. Shockingly, three of them were built with funding from the European Union and were clearly humanitarian projects.
Not only did the soldiers not respect this, but the commander also told Bilal that he would be sure to take down all the homes that were built with international help.
Five homes were torn down, and demolition orders were given for more of them.

Bilal is no stranger to home demolitions. Earlier, his house, which he said his father built in 1970, was destroyed also. He showed us the foundation of where his home used to be before it was leveled by the army.
The worst time for demolitions, he said, is winter time. This is the case because it is cold and people who are made homeless have no place to go.
He told us he once reproached a commander as he was about to destroy a home, asking him what about the women and children.

The answer was cold and cruel.
"It is not my problem".


Despite the situation they find themselves in, the villagers continue to resist by continuing to exist. They go to court and ask for legal help. They support one another. They continue to rebuild what was destroyed.

And they refuse to leave,

As Bilal told us, "I will stay here, I will not leave this area. This is my land".