On Wednesday, 11 September 2019, at around 8:00 A.M., Israeli Civil Administration personnel arrived with soldiers, Border Police officers, a bulldozer and three diggers at the Masafer Yatta area in the South Hebron Hills. In Khirbet al-Mufaqarah, the forces demolished three pre-fabricated buildings and a tent that had housed four families, 18 people in all, including eight children. The forces also confiscated a car belonging to the Masafer Yatta Council, claiming it had entered a firing zone. From there the forces proceeded to Khirbet Sarurah where they demolished a utility structure owned by a family from Yatta who farm land in the region. They then continued southwards, to Khirbet Khalllet a-Dabe’, where they demolished two cinder block and concrete structures used as housing for two families with a total of nine members, including five children. The forces also demolished a water cistern belonging to one of the families.
Some of the forces also went to the community of She’b al-Batem and, for the fifth time this year, dug deep trenches and placed boulders to block access from Route 317 to two roads that serve the community’s residents to get to the town of Yatta. In addition, the forces used trenches and boulders in several locations to block off a dirt road leading from Route 317 to the communities a-Tuwani, Kh. a-Rakeez, Kh. al-Mufaqarah, Kh. Sarurah, Kh. Khalllet a-Dabe’, Kh. al-Fakhit and Kh. a-Taban, impacting other communities as well. Demolitions and restrictions of movement are part of a series of abusive measures the authorities have been taking against local residents, in a bid to expel them from the area and their homes.
