Masafer Yatta

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Masafer Yatta has been under Israeli occupation.

The hamlet cluster is part of "Area C", meaning that Israel has full military and civil control over it.[1] The area is used by the army for military training and was denominated Firing Zone 918 by the Israeli army, after, according to aad cabinet minute of 1981, Ariel Sharon had explicitly stated that the purpose of such a redefinition would be to enable the expulsion of the local Palestinian residents.[7] More than one thousand Palestinians risk to be expelled from their homes and properties.[8]

Bir el-Eid, which is closest to the Israeli outpost Mitzpeh Yair, report having their cistern vandalized by having an animal carcass thrown into it. Palestinians claim that "the Israeli settlers were believed to be behind the vandalism".[9]

The Israeli authorities have been attempting to force the residents to relocate to Yatta, arguing that hamlets in this area only sprung up in the 1980s, when people from Yatta 'invaded' it after Israel's decision to declare it an IDF firing zone. The villagers appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court on the grounds that they have evidence of living in the area before the Israeli occupation. Their appeal is based on the fact that during the Israeli assault on Samu nearby, in 1966, the villagers of Jinba suffered damage, - the UN documented shortly after 15 houses that had been blown up by Israeli forces-and the damage was formally recognized soon after by the Jordanese government, which paid residents compensation for their losses in April and May 1967: 350 dinars per each stone house destroyed; 100 dinars for every killed camel, and seven for each sheep. It is argued to the contrary that what was blown up were Bedouin tents. Yet the Israeli geographer Natan Shalem, in his book Midbar Yehuda (Judean Desert) in 1931, stated that several villages there were not Bedouin nomadic encampments. Other evidence attests to the existence of inhabited sites outside Yatta-Jinba, Markaz, Al-Mafkara, Fakhit, Thaban, Al-Majaz, Sarura, Simra, Mughayer Al-Abid, Halawa, Sfei, Rakiz, Tuba, and Khalet a-Daba – long before the occupation.[10]

In May 2022, the Israeli Supreme Court endorsed the IDF position regarding an area of 3,000 hectares in which 12 Palestinian villages are sited, paving the way for the expulsion of 1,000 residents, which would be the largest deportation since the 1970s. [7] One of the judges involved in the ruling, David Mintz, is an settler, residing in the West Bank settlement of Dolev.[7]

In September 2021, a mob of approximately 80 to 100 masked Israeli settlers invaded the village of Khirbat al-Mufkara, one of the hamlets that compose Masafer Yatta, throwing stones at houses and damaging cars; 12 Palestinians were injured, including a three-year-old Palestinian child who was hit in the head when an Israeli settler threw a stone at him while he was asleep inside his home.[11][12]

Settlers attack on Al Mufakara, September 2021

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid reacted by calling it a "violent incident", "horrific, and it is terror. This isn’t the Israeli way, and it isn’t the Jewish way. This is a violent and dangerous fringe, and we have a responsibility to bring them to justice."[12]

Shattered window from the settlers attack on Al Mufakara