Yousef Shanaran, 52, built a well beside his house, which he can no longer reach. Since October 5, Israeli settlers have besieged his family home in Wadi Rakhim around the clock, a once-quiet corner of the South Hebron Hills among limestone rocks and thorny brush. They are unable to go outside on their own, even to fetch a little water from the well.
It took five days for the army to coordinate the family’s access to the well. After running out of water three days earlier, the Israeli army on Tuesday allowed them to retrieve some from the well. On October 5, the tent was moved just 30 metres from their home.
That day, about 50 settlers attacked the family with sticks and pepper spray. This marked the beginning of the full siege on Shanaran’s home. Nasser Nawajeh, a longtime B’Tselem field researcher who now heads the Susiya village council in Masafer Yatta, has tried to deliver supplies to the Shanaran family during the siege, but most attempts have failed.
If you want to bring in food or water, we have to do coordination.” Since October 15, he has kept asking the army for coordination to deliver supplies to the family — and given excuses each day: “‘The army’s busy, can’t come, there aren’t any forces’ — they tell us ‘tomorrow and tomorrow’,” he said. There are now two armies to contend with, Nawajeh said: the settlers’ regional units, the Kitat Konenut, meaning rapid response squads in Hebrew; and the regular army, which “comes, demolishes [the settlers’ tent] and leaves”. When the soldiers leave, the settlers simply pitch up their tent again.
Shanaran said the soldiers stationed outside his house do nothing. Nawajeh said the soldiers’ presence essentially amounts to a green light for the siege to continue. As the house is in Area B, an area technically under joint Israeli-Palestinian control, the army could arrest all the settlers as there is a closure order against them.
The soldiers posted outside the family home see their ostensible job as shielding the family from a beating, not ending the blockade. The siege is basically a prison,” he added. Shanaran said his family, trapped in their home, is living a life worse than prison.
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