On Wednesday morning, 24 February 2021, Hisham Hamud (62), a married father of nine, came to his livestock enclosure, which lies about 300 meters away from the village. Upon arrival, , he discovered that settlers had cut the barbed wire fence he stretched around the enclosure and stole eight lambs.
Over the past six months, B’Tselem has documented six settler attacks against residents of Jalud. This time, the damage caused to Hamud’s enclosure is estimated at 10,000 NIS (~3,032 USD).
In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i, Hamud recounted the invasion and the theft:
When I came to the enclosure at around 4:15 A.M., I heard bleating and found one lamb walking around the olive trees. I was amazed that she got there because the enclosure is surrounded by barbed wire. I discovered that the barbed wire fence had been cut and that the enclosure itself had been damaged. I went in and found out that all eight of my lambs, who were born a few months ago, had been stolen. I called the head of the village council and told him what had happened. At around 8:00 A.M., representatives of the Palestinian police, the Palestinian DCO, and the Israeli police arrived, took my statement, and photographed the scene. They told me they’d update me on the investigation developments and asked me to file a complaint at the Binyamin police station. The next day, I went to the station and filed a complaint, and they again told me that they’d update me, but to this day, no one has gotten back to me.
My sheep cost me a lot of money, and I invested a lot of work in them. I always wait for Ramadan to sell them, and I expected to sell the lambs that were stolen for at least 10,000 shekels.
The settlement outpost of Ahiya was established about 300 meters away from Hamud’s livestock enclosure.