In Umm al-Khair, the occupation is damning us to multigenerational trauma

Awdah Hathaleen

July 22, 2024

The demolition forces enter the village. All the children run to their mothers, who scramble to salvage whatever they can from their homes before it’s too late. Everyone watches on anxiously to see who will be made homeless today. The bulldozers gather in the center of the village and then stop. Soldiers disembark. The villagers look each other in the eye, searching for words of comfort, but there are none. Our children ask us why this is happening, but we have no answers.

This was the scene on June 26 in my village of Umm al-Khair in the occupied West Bank, when Israeli forces demolished 11 homes, leaving families without shelter in the heat of summer. The demolitions were just the beginning of what became one of the most violent weeks in the history of our small agricultural community: we have since faced a sharp escalation in settler violence, with subsequent attacks seeing settlers shoot live ammunition in the village and destroy our water system during a severe heat wave.

On the morning of the demolitions, we got word that officials from the Israeli Civil Administration — which administers the lives of Palestinians under occupation — were gathered on the highway near our village together with Border Police officers and demolition equipment. We have become accustomed to experiencing major demolition operations here in the South Hebron Hills, under the pretext that the structures were built without permits. Yet we have no other choice: Israel routinely denies permits to Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank as a method to expel us from our lands.

Since October 7, the situation in Umm Al-Khair has been even more difficult than usual. And that morning, we quickly realized that we were about to witness another major demolition operation.

My cousin, Eid al-Hathaleen, an artist and community leader, was one of the villagers whose world was turned upside down. “As activists who regularly document demolitions, we immediately started monitoring what was happening,” he said. “After a while, a military convoy accompanied by three bulldozers moved toward our village, closed off all the entrances, and barred the media and activists from entering.”

Upon entering the village, the demolition forces went straight to one of the oldest tents in Umm al-Khair: the tent of the martyr Suleiman al-Hathaleen, a monumental figure who led the community for years and was crushed to death two years ago by an Israeli police truck that raided the village. The soldiers formed a line to prevent residents from reaching the tent before bulldozing it to the ground.

In our state of shock, we thought maybe that would be the only tent demolished that day. Instead, the occupation forces continued to the main electricity room in our village, to Eid’s home, and then to one of the largest families in Umm al-Khair to destroy all of their homes and everything they owned.

In total, 10 houses were demolished that morning, along with the village council tent and the solar electricity room. Thirty-eight residents are now homeless — including my sister, whose house was destroyed along with all her possessions. What was particularly shocking was that these were among the oldest homes in the village, with some having received demolition orders all the way back in 2008. Now we are worried about every single house here in Umm al-Khair.

During a demolition, there is the immediate pain and horror of losing your home. But perhaps the hardest moment is the first night without it. In the hours after the demolition, you will be surrounded by your friends from the community and those who have come from elsewhere to offer solidarity. But at the end of that evening, all of them will go back to their homes — while you and your family are left to sleep outside among the rubble of your memories.

“I never imagined sleeping in the open that night,” Eid said. “I cannot describe that situation — how much I wanted to express what was inside me, and what my family, who are now homeless, was facing. How can I reduce their fear and anxiety, their feeling of having no safe place?”

For my sister, it took a few days to begin to process the tragedy. “During the nights, we usually make dinner for everyone and sit together,” she told me. “Then my children go to hang out with their friends in the community, the young ones go to sleep, and we plan for the following morning. But in one moment, we found ourselves in an unsteady tent which cannot protect us from anything. So in these moments, we understood what had actually happened to us.”

‘Why did grandma go to the hospital?’

Here in Umm al-Khair, the threat of home demolitions has hovered over every resident since we first received demolition orders 17 years ago. When I was young, my parents did everything to try to shield my siblings and I from this reality, but there are some memories that stuck with me.

I was only 13 years old during the first demolitions in 2007, but I still remember that day so clearly: I walked to school with two of my cousins, then sat at my desk which was next to the window, giving me a clear view of the village. Suddenly, we started to see bulldozers and people moving around; we tried to go out, but the teachers wouldn’t let us.

I remember my mother’s tears when I arrived back in the village, the women shouting, and the anger in the men’s faces. I remember the activists who stood with us, the soldiers and Border Police officers throwing tear gas, and the men being arrested. It’s a painful memory, yet I can’t help but remember.

Now a parent myself, I’ve tried to shield my 4-year-old son from this harsh reality as much as possible, so that he will not have to carry the same memories that I did. But sometimes, no matter how good a father you are, there are things you cannot control. And the past weeks have been some of the worst we’ve ever experienced.

In the afternoon of July 1, five days after the demolitions, a group of settlers from the illegal Israeli outpost of Havat Shorashim entered our village where a group of elderly women were feeding their sheep. They came into the home of my mother, the village elder Hajja Khadra al-Hathaleen, demanding that she make them coffee. When the women told the settlers to leave, one of them began shooting live fire into the air, beating the women with sticks, and spraying pepper spray in their eyes.

In a panic, we called for the police and army to come, not knowing how else to protect our families from the settlers. But when the army arrived, instead of making the settlers leave our land, they started to shout at the village residents and push us out of our homes. In total, six residents were wounded by the settlers: four women, a 5-year-old girl, and a 17-year-old boy. We called ambulances to take the wounded to the hospital, but when they reached the village, the settlers blocked the road, delaying the injured from getting urgent medical treatment. 

My son witnessed these attacks — he was playing in the area where the settlers arrived — and has been deeply affected by them. Understandably, he wants to know what is happening, and why. “Every time a settler sees me, will they use pepper spray?” he now asks. “Why did grandma go to the hospital?”

He even knows some of the settlers by name. Sometimes I tell him that they went to jail; I’m lying, but I want to make him feel safe. But he still sees his grandmothers, his cousins, and his aunts collapsing on the ground in front of him. It’s a tough memory, and I know that it will stick with him.

Since the attacks, my son has started stuttering — an entirely new symptom, and one that terrifies me. The doctor told us that the best treatment for stuttering is a safe environment. But this is what we cannot guarantee for our children: in Umm al-Khair, no one is in a safe place.

The following day, the same settlers returned to the village; after pitching a tent in my neighbor’s yard, over 20 of them gathered to say the Jewish evening prayers together. The next morning, while grazing their sheep in our private agricultural lands, they severed the pipe that is Umm al-Khair’s only connection to running water.

Amid all of this injustice, we often feel forgotten, lost, or hopeless. Sometimes we wonder: why do Israelis see us as terrorists and enemies? Why is the world not acting to achieve justice for Palestinians? But most of the time, we feel tired. The attacks, the raids, the demolitions: we think about them all the time. I always say that I wish fate hadn’t brought us to this point. But now we are stuck here; there’s no way to leave.