Khirbet a-Zuweidin, South Hebron Hills: Israeli soldiers detain Palestinian farmers after a confrontation they had with an Israeli settler who was grazing his flock on their land
6 April 2023
In early April [estimated date - 6 April 2023], at around 6:30 P.M., while Hassan Basaytah (49) and his brother Nayef (65) were on their way home to the community of Khirbet a-Zuweidin, they noticed a settler grazing his flock in their cultivated farm field. The two approached him and asked him to leave, and when he refused, they started throwing stones at his flock. The flock moved a few meters away. The settler returned to graze his flock on the land a while later, and one of the farmers in the area called Hassan to tell him. Hassan and his brother Muhammad (65) went there and tried to drive the settler away, including, at some point, by throwing stones at him and his flock. The settler called the military and the police, who arrived a short while later. One of the officers had Nayef come too, and he arrived within a few minutes. Then the soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded the three brothers and put them in a jeep. When the Ramadan fast ended for the day, the soldiers let them drink water, and about 20 minutes later, took off their handcuffs and blindfolds and let them pray. When the prayer was over, the soldier handcuffed and blindfolded them again and took them in the jeep to the settlement of Susiya, where they received some food and water and were allowed to pray again, without handcuffs but with blindfolds on. They were then once again handcuffed and kept in the jeep until late that night. At around 11:00 P.M., the three were taken somewhere near the town of a-Dhahiriyah and released. Hassan Basaytah’s sons came to pick them up.
Hassan Basaytah (49), a father of 18 from Kh. a-Zuweidin, said in his testimony:
One day in early April, at around 6:30 P.M., I was on my way home with my brother Nayef (65), and we saw the settler grazing his sheep in our crops. We went up to him and asked him to leave our area, but he refused. We started throwing some stones at his flock and managed to drive them about 15 meters away from the land. The settler filmed us on his phone, but we kept walking, and when we got home, Mahmoud Ka’abneh, who has land next to mine, called me and said he saw the settler had come back to graze his flock on my land.
I went back there with my brother Mahmoud (66), and when we arrived, we tried to drive the settler and his flock off the land and threw some stones at his flock. He called the army and the police. The police officer who arrived ordered me to call my brother Nayef and tell him to come right away because he was in the video the settler had taken. I called him, and he arrived within a few minutes, and then one of the soldiers handcuffed the three of us, blindfolded us, and the soldiers put us in their jeep. We sat in a jeep that stood there until it was time to break the Ramadan fast, and the soldiers let us drink water. After 20 minutes, they untied our hands so we could pray, and after we finished praying, they handcuffed us again, blindfolded us and put us in the jeep again.
The jeep started driving, and when we arrived, I could see through the blindfold that we were in the settlement of Susiya. We were put in a shipping container, and two soldiers guarded us there. Every time we asked why we were detained, they shouted at us and told us to shut up. We told them we were hungry after fasting, and they gave us dry bread and a little water. We asked to pray, and they untied our hands, and we prayed with our blindfolds on. We finished praying, and they handcuffed us again. After that, the soldiers put us back in the jeep and after a half-hour drive, it stopped, and they kept us inside it for a while. Then they told us to get out, took off our handcuffs and blindfolds, and when we asked where we were, one of the soldiers told us to check on Google. The soldiers left us there around 11:00 P.M., and then we checked our phones and found out we were near the town of a-Dhahiriyah. I sent the location to my sons, and they came to pick us up.
* Testimony collected by B’Tselem field researcher Manal al-Ja’bari on 3 May 2023.
- Physical assault
- Verbal confrontations and threats