No rest in Umm al-Khair: Settler violence overshadows life

Umm al-Khair, occupied West Bank - When Tariq Hathaleen stays up late on watch duty, he would prefer to sleep in the next morning, but the 29-year-old never knows how he will wake up.

Sometimes it is messages on his phone alerting him to nearby Israeli settler or military activity, and sometimes, he is jolted out of bed to the noise of early morning attacks or incursions just outside.

Along with his cousins, Eid and Awdah Hathaleen, Tariq is among the community leaders of Umm al-Khair, a small Bedouin village of approximately 200 where the rocky South Hebron Hills reach the parched edges of el-Bariyah, also known as the Judean Desert.

Every day, people wake up expecting to become homeless, Tariq said, sitting on a bench during a late-night watch in the community centre playground.

"We live in continuous fear,” he said.

"You don't know what will happen - whether the settler that is coming to shepherd next to your house will decide to attack you or not.”

Since late June, a string of violent or aggressive incidents have taken place in Umm al-Khair, with incursions by Israeli settlers, and sometimes the Israeli army, becoming a daily occurrence.

Homes have been invaded, solar panels have been smashed, the water supply has been cut and shots have been fired. There have been physical and pepper spray attacks and myriad other acts of harassment.

In the mornings when there are no incursions, the men on overnight watch sleep in the community centre playground.

As the desert sun starts beating down, the community’s many children start playing around their sleeping bodies.

This community centre, built with donations from supporters abroad, serves as an oasis of normalcy for these children growing up under constant threat and harassment.

Its large playground is a rarity for Palestinians - not only in Area C, the part of the occupied West Bank under Israeli military control, but in all of the occupied territory, where Palestinians typically have neither the municipal resources nor space for such communal amenities.

Days have similar patterns. As the mornings progress, children continue to play, loudly, unreservedly and mostly unsupervised, until their parents wake up - or incursions from the military or settlers start.

The villagers never know when or how they will be threatened, they explained, but nearly every day since late June, the settlers or army have come - separately and together.

Sometimes they drive into the village in trucks and raid people’s homes. Sometimes drones buzz overhead. When this happens, the playground gets quiet.

"The army! Soldiers!” the kids will shout, looking upward. It is so common that the children seem accustomed to it.

Even during heated confrontations between the Israeli army and villagers, children can be seen riding their bikes between the two groups.

Harassment by Israeli settlers comes at unpredictable times, and with unpredictable violence.

As early as 5am, teenage settlers who herd sheep for a settler from the adjacent illegal Israeli settlement of Carmel, bring their flocks to graze beside villagers’ homes.

It is common across Area C for these shepherding outposts to be overseen by one settler and operated by several teenagers, many of whom are funnelled to these outposts through rehabilitation programs for at-risk youth funded by organisations such as the Jewish National Fund.

The Jewish National Fund did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

The teens, armed with pistols, pepper spray and sticks, also frequently occupy the town’s only water source, sometimes remaining there with their flock for hours at a time.

Often, they verbally intimidate women and children nearby, and sometimes they even try to enter their homes. Though the settlers are baby-faced, their armed presence frightens the villagers as they assume a threatening stance towards anyone who dares to come near them.

The Palestinians also know that if they ever fight back, they will most likely have to face more attacks from the settlers or a response from Israeli soldiers.

And so the settlers continue their attacks.

The water source has now been attacked multiple times. Early in July, the water supply was cut off entirely when settler shepherds severed the pipe.

On July 1, two Israeli teenagers encroached upon a family’s flock with their own, a tactic often used to obscure ownership and take livestock from Palestinians.

Women from the family tried to keep the flocks separated, but the teenagers attacked them with sticks and pepper spray. Soon after, a settler leader from the nearby illegal settlement of Shorashim arrived and shot live rounds into the air.

During this attack, 10 Palestinians were injured, including Tariq, and five were taken to hospital.

At first, the Israeli settler leader tried to prevent the ambulance from leaving, telling the army that three of the injured were actually attackers.

"It just doesn't make any sense,” Tariq said.

The people of Umm al-Khair were traditionally shepherds themselves until two or three years ago, when the remaining land in the village and its vicinity was declared Israeli state land, preventing them from grazing their sheep.

Penned up inside the village, the flocks became an economic burden - their food had to be bought - rather than an income generator.

Only the Israeli shepherds now roam the village’s grazing areas, taking on the traditional roles and lifestyle of Bedouin villagers.

Such trends can be seen across Area C, where settler shepherd outposts managed to seize up to 7 percent of the land by 2022, according to research done by Israeli NGO Kerem Navot.

According to preliminary estimates by the NGO, that figure has likely multiplied in the last two years alone, with thousands of additional dunums [hundreds of acres or hectares] seized by these shepherds since October 2023, taking over land once used by Bedouins.

"They are not only shepherding, they literally try to live the life of the Bedouins,” Tariq said of the settlers. "They build tents, they keep donkeys, horses, camels, goats, sheep. They even dress like us Bedouins. They speak and sing Bedouin songs.”

Tariq chuckled. "You know, it's really funny because those people really don't know how to do things. They just imitate.”

As each tense day unfolds in Umm al-Khair, the children keep themselves occupied.

Outside at the community centre, an eight-year-old boy named Arafat pushes around an empty baby carriage, "selling vegetables".

"Potatoes! Watermelon! Cucumbers!” Arafat bellows.

He is a precocious young child, sharp and never shy with strangers after years of solidarity activists coming to the village.

He gave a price for his imaginary goods: "Five shekels ($1.37) per kilo,” and completed the "transaction” while reporting on how business has been. "This week has been OK,” the little shopkeeper said casually.

Earlier that day, settlers had come to Umm al-Khair, confronting and cursing the villagers. Arafat has had his own run-ins with the settlers.

"Just the other week, they came and attacked my home and pepper sprayed my father and he went to the hospital,” he said, dropping the shopkeeper persona and ignoring the jarring transition between his play and the reality of settler attacks.

Arafat was referring to June 29, when the teenage settlers entered his family’s home. When the family tried to push them out, they recounted, the teens attacked several family members with pepper spray.

Arafat’s father, Muhammad, had to be taken to hospital.

But immediately after mentioning that recent trauma, Arafat turned to a 20 shekel bill lying on the dirt ground nearby, picking it up.

"Is this yours?” he asked while holding up the bill, running up to everyone he saw in the village. "Is this yours? Is this yours?”

Mixing imaginary "business” with real-life "trauma” comes seamlessly to Arafat and other children in the community.

Yet, in recent weeks, parents in the village have reported their children waking up at night with nightmares of being attacked and shot at by the settlers.

The abutting settlement of Carmel, which crowds Umm al-Khair on the same hill, was established in 1980 - and largely on land the villagers’ elders started buying in the 1950s, the villagers said.

The first demolition orders on their homes were issued in 1995, they say, and the first demolitions took place in 2007.

There have been periodic demolitions ever since - nearly the entire village is under demolition orders - however, hostility and violence from neighbouring settlers have escalated since October 7, when Hamas attacked southern Israel and Israel began its war on Gaza.

In one incident, leaders from the village, including Tariq and Eid Hathaleen, were held at gunpoint by neighbouring settlers they knew personally.

These threats and attacks have intensified since June 26. On that day, the ICA demolished 11 structures in the village, leaving 28 people homeless, including 20 children.

Eid Hathaleen, a 40-year-old father of five girls, has spent years documenting such demolitions across the South Hebron Hills. But seeing his own home of 18 years demolished that day was still difficult to grasp.

"I thought: ‘Am I dreaming? Or is it the truth?’” recalled Eid, a calm and soft-spoken man, wearing his signature cowboy hat.

"But when I closed my eyes and opened them, I realised through the noise of the bulldozer, the shouting and crying of my community around me - it's true. It's happening.”

Later that afternoon, when displaced families attempted to erect a makeshift tent for shade from the blazing summer heat, the Israeli army took it down as well.

"Israel can go to [places affected by] earthquakes around the world and give first aid,” said Eid with an exasperated chuckle. "But they don't allow shade for people [whose] homes they just demolished.”

Eid and his family are now forced to live in their neighbour’s metal storage shed.

Every day, he passes by the rubble where his family home once stood. "This was the kitchen, and this was where we slept,” he explained over an indistinguishable pile of frayed wiring and pulverised concrete.

All that’s recognisable is the clothesline the family still uses.

The area containing his and others’ demolished homes has been declared a military zone.

"If I try to rebuild, I'm afraid that Israel will come to tear down the building,” said Eid.

"But in a few months, winter will arrive, and it gets so cold here - so windy, so stormy in the South Hebron Hills. I don’t know what to do.”

Desperate for housing, the dispossessed families eventually put up tents again. But on August 14, the ICA came and demolished them - the 18th round of demolitions the community has faced since 2007.

These demolitions and attacks continue as settler violence and pressure from the ICA - now run by the far-right Israeli politician and settler Bezalel Smotrich - have escalated this summer across Area C.

Since August 10, three Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley, comprising more than 100 people, have been forced out of their homes by settler violence: Ein el-Hilweh al-Farsiya Khallet Khader and al-Farisiya al-Zubi, according to local activists and the West Bank Protection Consortium.

In Umm al-Khair, Eid is the philosopher among the village leaders. He tells his children to recognise the humanity and perspectives of all humans - including Israelis, he said.

But his hopes for some kind of future peace have grown more distant since October.

Now, even the settlers of Carmel who were once somewhat more moderate - at least willing to talk to Eid - help carry out raids at night in military uniform or threaten villagers for trying to pick from a garden near the settlement’s fenced border.

Eid looked across the valley towards a large chicken coop operated by the settlers. Electrical wiring from the settlement conveniently passes over Umm al-Khair - its spartan tin homes without centralised water or electricity - to power the building.

"Their chickens have water, paved roads and high-power electricity to keep them heated in winter and comfortable in summer,” said Eid, as he stood beside his demolished home.

"But human beings? Not allowed.”

Each day, his family struggles to "just survive” in the metal shed where they now live, facing the simple but difficult question from his five little girls: "Why?”

"It's hard to fix things,” said Eid. "Sometimes, I give up. I am so tired that I want to just sit down and do nothing, really.”

"But I love life.”

At midday, on days the village is spared an attack, some men in Umm al-Khair nap.

But whenever a settler’s car drives through their village, everyone freezes, all eyes immediately turning to the approaching vehicle. They wonder: Is it merely passing through, or is this the next attack?

Tariq explained that constant uncertainty and daily hostilities make it difficult to focus on multiple tasks at once.

"You set up a whole plan for your day, but you end up somewhere far away from what you planned for.”

One of those tasks recently was to prepare - for once - celebrations: two upcoming weddings in the village, including Tariq’s brother's.

Simply planning them made him anxious.

"Just let us celebrate,” Tariq thought at the time, "and then we're ready to go back to this harsh life of daily attacks and raids by the army and settlers”.

The village had permission from the ICA to build a special tent for the weddings. But the night after they began constructing the tent, settlers in military uniform arrived.

An ICA representative demanded the tent be taken down within 10 minutes and the settlers started dismantling it. Two days later, Tariq and the villagers learned that permission to hold the events had been rescinded.

"How are we not allowed to [have] a wedding?” Tariq asked incredulously. "How are we not allowed to celebrate?”

The village held a scaled-back wedding ceremony at the community centre instead.

Circumstances and tragedy have thrust younger villagers like Tariq and his cousins into leadership roles atypical for Bedouin villages.

In 2000, Tariq’s oldest brother, Muhammad, was out shepherding when he was brutally attacked by the settlement’s security guard. Though he survived, the assault left him severely disabled.

Then, Tariq’s father died of a heart attack in 2009.

In 2022, his beloved uncle, Hajj Suleiman, a powerful community leader, stood in the way of a tow truck that was confiscating villagers' cars.

The truck ran over Suleiman - he died 12 days later.

"He was like the fruit of life. Without him, it’s been a very hard life for me,” said Tariq. "Honestly, I don't even know how we are holding up.”

The Hathaleen clan’s current mukhtar, or chosen leader, lives outside the village and, while they seek counsel with remaining village elders, it is up to this new generation now to handle the daily issues the occupation and settlers pose.

While other men - early morning shepherds by nature - struggle to stay awake at night, this comes easy to Awdah and Tariq, who otherwise would be lying awake in bed, their minds racing.

Tariq’s words darkened as he kept watch at night and wondered out loud what would happen the next time the settlers shot or killed someone: "How will that impact the community?"

"Because at the end of the day, we're not machines. We're human beings. We have feelings. We have dreams. We have thoughts. We have hearts. We have minds.”

He tries to stay positive, using humour to help lighten the mood, and does what he can to keep the village humming despite the constant threats.

But in quiet moments, the weight takes its toll.

"I sometimes wish that I was disabled like my brother, not really aware of what’s happening,” Tariq said.

"I wish I didn't have to feel bad about anything... But it's not in our hands. And you know what? I wish that I was also with my uncle when they ran him over, that I died with him.”

A motorcycle suddenly screeched nearby and Tariq stood up, on guard once again. After a moment, the motorcycle rode off and he slumped back to the bench.

"I want to know for one second. At least the last single second of my life, I want to know when this will end.”