Source: B'Tselem, 29 Jul 2015
The Palestinian village of Khirbet Susiya has existed for at least a century. It appears on maps as far back as 1917 – decades before Israel began occupying the West Bank. Aerial photographs from 1980 show cultivated farmland and livestock pens, indicating the presence of an active community there. In his book Expansion and Desertion: The Arab Village and Its Offshoots in Ottoman Palestine [in Hebrew], geographer David Grossman wrote that some 25 Palestinian families were living in caves in the village in 1986.
An internal opinion written in 1982 by Att. Plia Albeck, head of the Civil Division in the State Attorney’s Office, recognized the Palestinian village of Susiya and acknowledged that its residents own the land on which the village was built. According to the opinion: “The synagogue is located in a place called the lands of Khirbet Susiya, and it is surrounded by an Arab village that lies amid ancient ruins. The land of Khirbet Susiya is listed in the Land Registry as an area of some 3,000 dunams [300 hectares] in the private possession of many Arab owners”.
In 1986 Israel expropriated the land on which the historic village of Susiya was located, expelled its residents, declared the area an archaeological site, and appointed settlers from Susiya – an Israeli settlement established nearby in 1983 – to manage the site. Archeological excavations found remains in the area that have been identified as part of a synagogue in use on that site until the eighth century. Subsequently, a mosque was constructed atop the ruins of the synagogue. Some of the expropriated land was incorporated into the jurisdictional area of the settlement. Later, an illegal outpost was established on the original site of the village and is now home to settler families.
After they were expelled from their village, the residents moved into caves or tents on their privately-owned farmland, in an area called Rujum al-Hamri, close to the settlement of Susiya and the original site of the village. In 1991, the Israeli military expelled them from this area as well. The military had no official warrant for this action nor did it provide the residents with any explanation to as to why they were being uprooted a second time.
After the second expulsion, the residents went to live elsewhere on their cultivated farmland, in a location further away from the settlement of Susiya and the original site of the village. They still live there today. They lived in caves and tents, as aerial photographs taken in 1999 clearly show. In 2001, the Israeli authorities tried to expel them a third time, as “penalty” for the killing of settler Yair Har Sinai by Palestinians (who were not residents of the village of Susiya). Over the course of several days, the Israeli military, the Civil Administration (CA), and settlers from the area sealed off the residents’ caves and wells and demolished their tents and livestock pens. On 26 January 2001, leading Israeli news website Ynet quoted the IDF Spokesperson as saying that the OC Central Command had ordered an internal inquiry into the evacuation of the residents, which had been carried out in breach of regulation.
Read more:
http://www.btselem.org/south_hebron_hills/201507_facts_on_susiya
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