See also

Letter
   writing

Al Haq
   report

Rev.
   Sandra
   Olewine

UMC in
   Middle East

Jerusalem
   demolitions

Additional
  documentation

West Bank Palestinian home demolished by the Israeli military. Hundreds have been destroyed by Israel, some as collective punishment for individual acts of retaliation—branded as "terrorism"—against the Israeli occupation and its many forms of violence against the Palestinian people. Homes in and around Jerusalem are demolished because they lack building permits—which city and municipal authorities deny Palestinians in order to ensure a Jewish majority.

General Board of Global Ministries missionary the Rev. Sandra Olewine said that the Israeli military blew up the caves and filled in village wells in the Hebron district after the shooting death of Yair Har-Sinai (51), a settler tending sheep on the outskirts of the settlement of Sussia.

Families in the villages of Samoa, Wadi Al Rakhim, Khirbat Al-Nabi, Al-Sussia, Mnezel and Al Shatni, who can't or won't leave their land, have limited food and water, and no shelter. The Red Cross is trying to truck water to the villages, but relief operations are limited because the area is a closed military zone according to the government of Israel.

"We have even been told that caves serving as shelter for flocks were demolished with the sheep inside," Rabbis for Human Rights reported. The group includes Jewish religious leaders who work with local and international non-governmental organizations in monitoring, reporting and protesting human rights violations in Israel.

Palestinian families have lived in caves in these locations for hundreds of years. Sussia is one of seven settlements on some 21,500 acres of land seized by Israel in 1982. Following common practice by the government, the seized area was declared a closed military zone and subsequently turned over to settlers. As a result the villages are encircled by the settlements of Sussia, Yatah, Ma'oun, Beit Yatir, Lasefer, Adnael and Carmael.

Olewine explained that residents of the district refused to leave their homes despite years of efforts to expel them by the Israeli government and settlers. A year and a half ago, the army simply evicted the Palestinians from the shacks and caves where they lived—men, women, children, sheep, and chickens—and turned them out into the desolate mountain region.

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