A Joyless Holiday in the South Hebron Hills Amid an Israeli Army Training Exercise
Fadel and Jamala Rabai with their grandchildren.C
Just after he set out, the man passed a gray concrete cube adorned with a warning in red letters, stating: “Danger. Entry forbidden. Firing zone.” There are plenty like that around here. The man ignored the cube and continued on toward his home. Where else would he go?
Four days earlier, last Thursday, an Israel Defense Forces tank gunner fired a bullet that struck the roof of his neighbors’ home in the hamlet, while the family was inside. But that too did not deter this man. Where else would he go
No guests arrived in Halat a-Dab’a this past week. Saturday marked the start of the four days of Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the great Muslim festival when countless sheep are slaughtered, a holiday of family celebrations. But no one came to Halat a-Dab’a, or to the other shepherds’ communities and villages in the area. Four weeks ago, the IDF started to hold training exercises here, in Firing Zone 918, following a High Court of Justice decision to allow Israel to expel the residents of more than a dozen villages and hamlets (those exercises were temporarily called off this week, during President Joe Biden’s visit). So it was a sad holiday in Masafer Yatta, perhaps their saddest holiday ever.
It was certainly the saddest festival for the Rabai family in the village of Tawani, the largest community in Masafer Yatta. Their holiday table was again missing the two brothers who are in an Israeli prison, who between them are the fathers of 11 children. This is the third holiday they haven’t spent with their families since they were jailed in May 2021
Living here in the compound are their parents, Jamala and Fadel Rabai, 58 and 59 years old, respectively, together with their other children and grandchildren. A demolition order exists for the whole compound. On May 11, the military government’s Civil Administration demolished a dwelling of 100 square meters belonging to the Rabais’ son Mohammed, 27, who has three children. When we arrived on Monday, we sat in a different spacious structure, which also has a demolition order hanging over its tin roof.
On the Eid al-Fitr holiday in 2020, the family went to visit relatives in Yatta. When they returned, two civilian cars were blocking the road that leads to the village. Fadel, the family patriarch, and his two sons, Mohammed and Bilal, 34, who has eight children, were certain the cars belonged to settlers. The violent settlement of Havat Maon overlooks their village from a nearby mountain, and they are scarred and very experienced when it comes to attacks by settlers.
The three Palestinians got out of the cars and began throwing stones at the two vehicles that were blocking them. But the occupants of those vehicles immediately ordered them to get back into their cars, while firing pepper spray at them. Then the intruders drove o
“That was our holiday. Hag same’ah – happy holiday,” Fadel says wrily, in Hebrew.
At 2 A.M. the following day, a large force of soldiers and police officers arrived at their home and arrested Fadel and his two sons. The occupants of the cars that had been blocking the road were, it turned out, undercover men from the police, not settlers. Now the villagers are suspected of assaulting police officers.
The three were taken to the police station in the urban settlement of Kiryat Arba, abutting Hebron, and from there to Ofer Prison, near Ramallah. Fadel was released two months later on bail of 10,000 shekels (about $3,000); Bilal and Mohammed are still in prison. Their trial has been postponed several times, and its end is not yet in sight. Another hearing is set for next week. No one is permitted to visit the two incarcerated sons and fathers, though neither has been convicted of anything. They are, however, allowed occasional, very brief phone calls with family members. It’s impossible to avoid comparing their situation with that of settlers who attack members of Israeli security forces and aren’t even detained.
Mohammed’s home has been demolished during his detention. Fadel, a stocky, bearded shepherd, relates that last November, he was attacked by a settler from Havat Maon – and the police responded by arresting him and another son, Juma, 24. In the course of the arrest, which also took place in the dead of night, the police officers and soldiers opened the gate of Fadel’s sheep pen, allowing its 40 animals to scatter in all directions. Ten of them didn’t return.
Again they were taken to Kiryat Arba and Ofer, again they were interrogated and detained until their release, nine days later, with bail of 1,000 shekels (roughly $300). Ten days later, Fadel was arrested yet again, this time with Osama, his 29-year-old son. They were suspected of threatening to kill a settler, but were released the same day, again on bail of 1,000 shekels each. Fadel asked the police officers, at the time, “Why are you arresting me? I worked all my life in Israel and also for Maimon [an Israeli contractor] in Bat Yam. Havat Maon wants us to leave. We will not leave.”
Last Saturday, following custom, the Rabai family slaughtered a sheep and ate the holiday meal. The next day they brought the leftovers to their neighbors and to relatives in the area. “Happy holiday,” Fadel says again, in Hebrew, but happiness was in short supply this year, with the fathers of 11 of his grandchildren still absent.
“There is nothing better than peace,” he says. “I have slept in Tel Aviv, in Ramat Aviv, in Rishon Letzion and in Nes Tziona. I’ve had Jewish friends. But the settlers here are not Jews. They were brought here from all kinds of places in the world, but they are not Jews. The Jew is my brother, but these settlers, their father was not Abraham. They say this is their land because God told them it is their land. Aharon [a settler] places piles of hay on our land and says it’s his land.” Again, says Fadel, “Happy holiday, and thanks for coming.”
Halat a-Dab’a is a few kilometers from Tawani, on the mountain – a cluster of tents and plastered homes, simple but well kept, where about 75 people live. Seen from a distance, you might think it was a mini-version of an Israeli community settlement. But no community settlement in Israel was ever demolished the way the dwellings in this village have been razed and rebuilt, again and again. The latest demolition occurred in November 2021. The home of Jabbar Dababsi, 34, has already been plowed under a total of five times, his brother’s place four times, and that of his uncle three times; all of them are residents of this little enclave.
The Palestinian pennants that decorate the fences flap in the breeze. Since the settlers, the army and the police began tearing down Palestinian flags in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, many more Palestinian flags have been visible in the occupied territories. Some of the village men sit in a broad, new, state-of-the-art tent, passing the time during this dreary holiday. The tent was a gift from the Palestinian Authority, compensation for the demolished dwellings. No one came to visit them this year, because of the army’s training exercises and the bullet that struck a home. Some of their fields were also trampled by tanks, they relate.
This past Monday, the army trained here until the afternoon. Dababsi shows us photos of explosions raising dust, taken with his phone. Here’s an explosion from two hours ago, not far from here. The locals report that more bullets flew over their heads during the holiday, besides the one that hit the house. This is the fourth week of training here, and the children are frightened. In the meantime, the exercises are taking place three days a week – during daylight hours, fortunately – but their echoes are heard far and wide.
“It was hard with the visits on this holiday,” Dababsi says. “We looked forward to a better and happier holiday. Our homes are in a firing zone.” They also tell about roadblocks on the way here and the confiscation of a car and the arrest of at least one driver, in the past.
Haitham Dababsi, 41, escorts us to his home, a handsome one-room dwelling with a tin roof. Haitham learned English via the Al-Quds Open University, and he speaks the language well. But there is no work for him here, so he works in construction in distant Haifa, sleeping in the shell of the building where he’s employed and arriving home once every week or two. He measures his words carefully, and they are touching.
Last Thursday, Dababsi was at work in Haifa, and his parents were in his house together with his wife and two children, a 4-year-old son and a 4-month-old daughter. Suddenly, they heard something explode above them. A tank bullet had hit the tin roof while his father was standing under it. Fortunately, no one was hurt. A ladder now leads up to the roof, to which we climbed, the hole made by the projectile has been covered with patchwork tin.
The family sent a photograph of the scarred roof to the IDF, and an army force arrived at the site in response to their complaint and then left. The family found the bullet only after the soldiers left and wanted to turn it over to the army, but the army didn’t send anyone back to get it. The IDF naturally denied that it had anything to do with the firing from the tank. Maybe a tank of the Palestinian armored corps fired the bullet?
“After an investigation was conducted, which included a check of the place of impact, it was found that there was insufficient support for [the claim] that the structure was hit by fire from the training exercise, especially given the fact that the structure in question is outside the shooting corridors,” the IDF Spokesman’s Office stated. However, it also noted that the community of Halat a-Dab’a did not appear on the special maps drawn up by the army to show where Palestinian villages are located, so that they are not endangered by shooting during training exercises.
The army having no apparent interest in it, the bullet was given to the Breaking the Silence organization. Basil al-Edra, a Tawani resident who escorted us, said that it recalls the IDF’s response after the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh this past May. And in short order, Basil asks us about the significance of the new political union between Ministers Benny Gantz and Gideon Sa’ar.
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