Karmah, Hebron District: Soldiers and settlers attacked and expelled Palestinian olive harvesters
13 November 2024
On Wednesday, 13 November 2024, at around 9:00 A.M., Bassam Abu Sheikhah, 60, and his family went to harvest olives on their land west of the village of Karmah, near Route 60. After about an hour, a car pulled up near the family and two soldiers came out. They took the farmers’ ID cards and told them they were not allowed to be there without coordination with the DCO and that they had to leave, even though the farmers had never been required to coordinate access to the site before. The soldiers stole the farmers’ harvesting equipment and the sack of olives that they had picked, put them in their car, and left. The farmers went home empty-handed. Bassam has been too afraid to harvest olives in that location ever since.
Several days later, on Sunday, 17 November 2024, at around 9:00 A.M., Abu Sheikha and his family, along with about 40 other farmers from the village, set out to harvest olives on their lands in another area, located between the village and the settlement of Otniel, after the Israeli DCO had given them permission to harvest there for three days. About half an hour after the farmers reached their plots, several vehicles drove up from the direction of the settlement, and soldiers and at least one armed settler got out.
Three of the soldiers ran towards Jibrin al-’Awawdeh, a 68-year-old farmer, and his son Akram, 48, who were picking olives in their plot, near which the settlement was established. The soldiers attacked the two, hitting the father in the face and back with a rifle butt and knocking the son face down on the ground, and then shouted at them, ordering them to leave. The two tried to run away, but after advancing about 50 meters, they reached a high ledge and could not go further. The soldiers caught up to them, took their IDs and phones, and detained them there, threatening to kill them. After about 15 minutes, the soldiers returned their IDs and phones and ordered them to go home. On their way back to the village, the two saw the soldiers throwing the olives they had picked into a nearby stream.
While Jibrin and Akram were being attacked, other soldiers and a Civil Administration officer approached the other farmers working in the area. They told them that the coordination had been canceled and that they had to leave the area and detained several of them for about an hour and a half. When the farmers began making their way back to the village, an armed settler chased them all the way to the village, shouting and cursing. He remained in the village for about ten minutes and then left.
The village council reported the incident to the Palestinian DCO, which told the farmers that soldiers would let them harvest the following two days. The next morning, when some of the farmers arrived at their land, several soldiers who were waiting for them told them that they were only allowed to harvest in plots located between the village and the Hebron stream, which runs about two hundred meters from the village homes, effectively denying them access to most of their land.
B’Tselem field researcher Basel al-Adrah collected testimonies from village farmers on 29 November 2024:
Bassam Abu Sheikhah, 60, a father of four, said in his testimony:
On Wednesday, 13 November 2024, my wife and I, and two of our children went to harvest olives on the outskirts of the village, near Route 60, where we have 12 olive trees.
We started working at 9:00 A.M., and an hour after we started harvesting, a car driving on Route 60 pulled up next to us. Two uniformed soldiers got out of it and told us to stop working.
One of them demanded my ID, and I gave it to him. He asked me: “Do you have permission to work here?” I told him this was my land, and we always come to work on it and don’t need permission for that. He made a few phone calls, and after about 15 minutes, he said, “You need to contact the DCO and get coordination to come pick olives here,” adding, “Now you have to leave the land.”
The soldiers put a roughly 25-kg sack of olives we’d managed to pick before they came in their car along with the tarps we’d spread out on the ground and our ladder. They took everything and drove away, and we were forced to go home.
A few days later, on Sunday, 17 November 2024, after the head of the council told us we had coordination from the Israeli DCO to harvest in lands we have in another area on 17-19 November, I went with my wife, our two sons, and about 40 other people from our family and other families from the village of Karmah, each to their own lands in the Wadi a-Rahim area, next to which the settlement of Otniel was established. The plots there are at different distances from the settlement – between 700 meters and a kilometer. We spread out, everyone going to their own plot.
We got to ours at 9:00 A.M., and half an hour later, we already saw military jeeps and regular cars with soldiers in them driving up from the direction of the Otniel settlement. One of them said he was an Israeli DCO officer.
He told us and all the other families in the area that the harvest coordination in that area had been canceled and we were not allowed to work there. Some of the soldiers swore at us and detained us for an hour and a half, and then ordered us to get lost. They told us we had to make a new application for coordination.
Jibrin ‘Awawdeh, 68, a father of 10, also spoke about what happened on 17 November 2024 in his testimony:
My son Akram and I started picking olives as soon as we got to the land, but about half an hour later, a military jeep stopped near the fence of the Otniel settlement and three soldiers got out of it and started shouting and running towards us. We froze in place, not knowing what to do. The soldiers got to us, and one of them came up to me and punched me hard in the face. Another soldier attacked my son Akram, pushing him and knocking him face down on the thorns.
I went over to see how Akram was doing, and then the soldier attacked me again, hitting me in the back with the butt of the rifle and knocking me down on top of Akram. The blow hurt a lot. The soldiers shouted in Hebrew, which I understand, saying, “Go on, get out of here.”
I grabbed my son and we quickly ran away from the plot through a field of thorns. The soldiers ran after us, kicking and yelling at us. When we got about 50 meters away, we couldn’t go any further because we reached the edge of a high cliff below which was a dry stream bed.
The soldiers shouted “Die!” At that moment, my phone rang, and the soldier shouted and ordered us to stop. We stopped where we were. The soldier took my phone from me and demanded my and Akram’s IDs. He ordered us to sit on the ground.
We obeyed. I tried to talk to him and tell him there was advance coordination with the DCO, but he didn’t care and he just kept repeating the two phrases “shut up” and “you’re all going to die.” After about 15 minutes, he handed us our phones and ID cards back and ordered us to get lost.
We walked up the hill towards the village. When I looked back, I saw the soldiers throwing the olives we had managed to collect on the ground. I think there were about ten kg there. I also saw several soldiers holding up one of the families on their land. Later, I heard that they’d let them go too, but did not let them harvest.
We haven’t gone back to the land to harvest ever since that day, because it’s gotten scary.
- Physical assault