Abu Suleiman is the Head of the Local Council from
Zanuta
, a village in the South Hebron Hills in the southern occupied West Bank. He, along with all 250 Zanuta residents, has been forcibly displaced from the village for three years as a result of Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign targeting Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities in Area C.
Zanuta, my village, never, ever leaves my thoughts. Now, I live in Al-Dhahiriya, a stone’s throw away from Zanuta. But between me and Zanuta stand Israeli settlers, checkpoints, outposts and soldiers, reinforced by [the authorities’] lack of will to implement a court order. Every time I step outside the house I now live in, I look toward Zanuta. It is right there in front of me. There is hardly a week that goes by without me dreaming about Zanuta.
We lived in Zanuta, as did our fathers and grandfathers. Then suddenly, in 2020, a settler appears and starts telling us: “This land is mine.”
We were born in this area, so all our experiences, both good and bad, took place there. Our memories are there. Our livelihood, our sheep, our land, our crops, our farming. The exhaustion of herding the sheep, taking them across long distances, being out in the rain. Everything is in Zanuta. We lived there despite the harsh conditions. Even the hardship of living there and the things that used to annoy me, I now long for.
Before we were displaced, there were no services, no proper roads and no electricity in Zanuta. We only had electricity from solar panels provided by a local NGO. It was a very basic way of life. Yet despite all that, we were living on our land, in our homes. There may have been barracks and tents, but we were living a simple, beautiful and dignified life with peace of mind on our own land, in our own village.
The Israeli military does nothing
We tried to stay, but in the end, everyone reaches a breaking point. People fear for their lives, their children, their livelihoods, and their flocks. That is only nat
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