On 6 May 2021, at around 6:00 A.M., Mahmoud Hamamdeh (56), a resident of Khirbet al-Mufaqarah in the Masafer Yatta area of the South Hebron Hills, took his flock out to graze as he does every morning, west of the community. In 2002, the settlement outpost of Avigail was established next to a spring about 400 meters from the pastureland.
Hamamdeh noticed settlers bathing in the spring. About 15 minutes later, as he made his way further into the pastureland with the flock, five masked settlers attacked him and the sheep with stones.
In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Nasser Nawaj’ah, Hamamdeh recounted:
I tried to defend myself and my flock, which is our only source of livelihood, but they kept on throwing stones at us for about 15 minutes. One of the stones hit me in the hand and it was extremely painful. In the end, I managed to get home with the flock and from there, I went to a clinic to check my wrist.