Weekly Summary from Masafer Yatta, November 14-20.11.2025
From November 14-20, 2025, Masafer Yatta's olive harvest ended poorly, and the plowing season is already being disrupted by settlers and the army. There have been multiple incidents where Palestinians were prevented from plowing their fields, and settlers are claiming ownership over Palestinian lands, leading to violence and harassment against residents. The situation is compounded by ongoing attacks and vandalism by settlers, with the police largely failing to intervene, further exacerbating the ongoing struggles of the Palestinian communities in the region.
Weekly Summary from Masafer Yatta, November 14-20.11.2025
The olive harvest is over, and as we reported here and here, little good came out of it. The plowing season is just beginning, and it already appears that the settlers and the army are joining forces to spoil it as well. This week we saw two developing trends. First, the settlers and the army quickly intervene to stop any plowing from taking place. For example, on 20.11, in Huwara, settlers prevented Palestinian residents from plowing their land. Army and police arrived, conferred with the settlers, and immediately sprang into action: they had the Palestinians sit on the ground with their hands behind their backs, detained the activists who were there to document, and left only after about two hours. The field remained unplowed. Second, the settlers are plowing in Palestinian fields in order to claim ownership and prevent the real owners from doing the same. This, for example, is what happened in Tiran on 20.11. We will provide a more detailed report on the plowing season next week.
At the same time, the settlers continue to go on a rampage. Here are a few examples. Early in the morning on November 14, they cut water pipes connecting Maghair al-Abid and Tuba, and another band celebrated drunkenly around a bonfire in the village of Tiran. On November 15, there was a raid in Susiya (the attackers broke a security camera and fled), and a tractor broke through fences around the house in Umm Darit. On November 17, settlers on horseback pushed their way into houses in Haraibat an-Nabi, shoving residents and activists to the ground. On November 19, settlers sprayed slanderous graffiti on a house in Wadi Rakhim and stole a donkey in Fakhit. And on November 20, dozens of rioters led a pogrom in the village of Markaz. They seriously injured three members of the same family: one child, his mother, and father (see photo). Not in one of these cases did the police intervene. In fact, this week too, they were threatening residents with an arrest should they call them again with their “false complaints.”
In Umm al-Kheir, the settlers continue to work on their new outpost (in blatant violation of a court order). This week, they installed eruv posts, and as usual, they invaded and harassed the village on a daily basis. In Jinba, soldiers handed residents 15 demolition orders, including for the village mosque, the village clinic, several homes and sheep pens, and a communal playroom for the children. A typical week in the Masafer.
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.