Weekly Summary from Masafer Yatta, October 31-November 6, 2025

Weekly Summary from Masafer Yatta, October 31-November 6, 2025

How do residents in the Masafer make ends meet? For over two years, work in Israel has been prohibited for all West Bank residents, and even though the war on Gaza is supposedly over, their return is not even on the agenda. Shepherding is almost impossible under the settlers' regime of terror: they attack the shepherds, steal or brutally kill their sheep, scatter or burn the hay, and take possession of their water cisterns. On November 1 at 8:00, to give but one example from this week, a resident of Fakhit grazed his sheep on the outskirts of the village. Settlers arrived immediately, beat him with a stick, and chased him back to the village. The police then arrested the Palestinian shepherd on the settlers’ false claim that he had beaten them. When the sheep cannot graze and remain in the pen, they eat fodder that is expensive to obtain and transport, and the expenses quickly surpass any gains. Not much of a livelihood.

Agricultural crops, and in particular olives, are almost the last remaining source of sustenance in the Masafer (as they are throughout the West Bank). We knew all too well that this year's harvest would be particularly poor, even compared to the previous two, and not just because of global warming, meager rainfall, and annual fluctuations. The settlers realize that olives are essential for the survival of the communities, and they have been systematically annihilating them. Anyone who reads our weekly reports knows that every week there are dozens of invasions with herds into the orchards. When this happens, the young olives are completely destroyed, the mature ones are prevented from yielding fruit, and when cows and camels are also brought in, even large trees are completely ruined. In addition, such an invasion is an opportunity to break branches, tear down trees, and cut fences to make future invasions easier. The police, for their part, will do everything not to intervene. Take Umm Darit this week, for example. On October 31, a settler invaded the olive groves with a herd. When the owner called the police, they claimed he was lying, that there was no settler with a herd there, that his ownership documents were not worth the paper they were printed on, and that should he call them again, he would be arrested. So later in the week, when settlers arrived with their herds on a daily basis, he did not call the police, and the picture was similar in Susiya, Wadi Jheish, Wadi Rakhim, Sh’ab al-Buttom, Tel Ma'in, Gawawis, az-Zuweidin (where, for example, a policeman allowed a settler to graze in an olive grove on November 2), and more. Fence cuttings were documented this week in Gawawis, Sh’ab al-Buttom, and Susiya, among others. Tree-breaking took place earlier this week in Susiya (1.11), and right on the eve of the harvest, on the night between November 4 and 5, settlers invaded an orchard adjacent to Susiya, cut down 34 mature olive trees, and broke branches from 14 others. All this, before the harvest began.

So what did the harvest look like this week?

As our readers may recall, the army issued a list of draconian orders: harvesting almost everywhere was to be permitted only by coordination, during extremely limited hours, without phones, and without accompanying activists. This was exactly how things unfolded in Raqiz on November 3. Only harvesters from a very limited list were allowed to enter their lands, without phones, cameras, water bottles, tea kettles, and the like. Some of them were immediately expelled by Border Control soldiers (with settlers standing at their side). Those who remained in the orchards discovered that settlers had broken many trees, their sheep had eaten most of the olives, and the army had severely limited the time they of work. Furthermore, the soldiers did not allow them to repair the fences that the settlers had cut, or to carry out necessary agricultural maintenance, all in blatant violation of the instructions of the Attorney General. They only allowed them to pick what little was left, or a part thereof, and forced them to leave immediately. In Humra that day, the scenario was similar.

The events in Susiya on November 5 were even grimmer. After the pickers entered the orchard with all the above-mentioned restrictions, an attack began. About a dozen settlers threw stones at the pickers and also at the army and police forces. None of the attackers were arrested. And if that were not enough, later in the day there was another pogrom in Sh’ab al-Buttom. 11 masked settlers brutally attacked an elderly man and woman who needed hospitalization, breaking windows, electrical appliances, furniture, security cameras, and water infrastructure, and spray-painting the following inscription on the wall of their home: Regards, Susiya harvest (see photo). The message is clear: every Palestinian harvest will be met with violence. Indeed, on November 6, settlers on an ATV arrived at a Palestinian olive orchard in Gawawis that had not yet been harvested, and were recorded calmly picking the fruit from them, while others vandalized more olive trees in nearby Susiya.

On Masafer Yatta

Masafer Yatta is the southernmost area of ​​the West Bank. Dozens of communities have been living in this region for generations as shepherds and farmers, first in caves and sukkot (wooden structures) and gradually also in houses, many of them in tiny villages that surround the city of Yatta. Since Israel occupied the area in 1967 and imposed military rule, and as part of the ethnic cleansing of many areas under Israeli occupation, the State of Israel has been hoping to cleanse the Masafer of ​​its Palestinian residents and has taken a variety of measures to this end. These include house demolitions, expulsions of entire villages, building and expanding settlements, dotting the area with outposts and farms inhabited by violent settlers, preventing Palestinian access to agricultural lands, declaring firing zones (including Firing Zone 918, 33,000 dunams in size, which contains 13 villages, currently home to over 2,000 people–settlers are of course allowed to build outposts even in the firing zone), arbitrary arrests, and more. Since October 7, 2023, there has been a steep spike in the violence of both settlers and the army, Including incessant attacks, invasions of private property, theft, arson of property and homes, frequent house demolitions, economic terror, and road blockades. In the vast majority of cases, the police are careful not to intervene. Some communities have already been forced to leave their land, and others are hanging by a thread. A group of international and Israeli activists has been accompanying these communities since 2001, with increased intensity in the last two years.