The recent escalation of violence in Israel-Palestine seemed to be happening everywhere, all at once. But one place that’s been getting less public attention is a rural part of the West Bank called the South Hebron Hills. Last weekend, Jewish settlers set fire to Palestinian fields and tried to destroy a cave in the village of Sarura.
We have dedicated two past episodes of Unsettled to the story of this cave: how it was first reclaimed four years ago by Palestinian and Jewish activists; and how it has remained in local Palestinian hands ever since, thanks to a group called Youth of Sumud. Today, we’re sharing those two episodes as one.
Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, and Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.
“Palestinian children travel dangerous route to school in At-Tuwani” (DCI Palestine, 9/10/13)
Amira Hass and Hagar Sheizaf, “The Village Where Palestinians Are Completely Powerless” (Haaretz, 1/5/21)
Spotify playlist: Unsettled essentials, May 2021
transcript
MAX FREEDMAN: Hey, this is Max, one of the producers of Unsettled.
One of the unique things about this moment in Israel-Palestine is that violence has been escalating everywhere, all at once. We’ve talked on the show about Jerusalem, Gaza, Haifa, and Lydd, just to name a few.
But one place that’s been getting less public attention so far is the South Hebron Hills, a rural part of the West Bank where I spent time in late 2019 and early 2020. Settler violence, which is a constant in the South Hebron Hills, has been ramping up too.
Last weekend, Israeli soldiers and police looked on and did nothing as masked settlers set fire to Palestinian fields. A local activist named Sami Huraini put this video on Facebook.
SAMI HURAINI: English now. So now we are live from the village, near the village of Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills. A lot of settlers are attacking in this moment the Palestinians. Under the protection of the Israeli occupation soldiers. A while ago, the settler just set up a fire in al-Haruba that’s very near from here 5 minutes. With as we can see we are hearing the shooting of the tear gas and sound bombs by the Israeli settlers against the Palestinians. At the moment the settlers are… looks like going back. Or no, they are still here. The soldiers are shooting rubber bullets. The soldiers are shooting the rubber bullets against the Palestinians.
MAX: While Sami and his friends were busy documenting the settlers and dodging rubber bullets, another group of settlers saw an opportunity. They went to the Palestinian activists’ cave in a nearby village called Sarura. Here’s another video posted to the Facebook page of Sami’s group, Youth of Sumud.
ACTIVIST: I’m here in Sarura. Settlers have put fire to the cave inside. I don’t know if you can see. And also to the field outside. We have policemen standing on the hill and they’re not doing anything. They saw the settlers come, they saw them light the fire, they’re continuing to stand there. We’ve called the police a dozen times and they’re not responding. And the land is continuing to burn. This is in Sarura in the South Hebron Hills.
MAX: According to Sami Huraini, the settlers burned furniture and a generator inside the cave, destroyed the wall of their kitchen, their water tanks, and their bathroom.
This cave is not just a cave. This cave is so significant that we have dedicated not one, but two episodes to its story: how the cave was first reclaimed by Palestinian and Jewish activists four years ago, and how it has remained in local Palestinian hands ever since. Today, we’re sharing those two episodes as one.
Up first is our very first episode, from way back in August 2017.
PART 1: SUMUD FREEDOM CAMP (2017)
TOM CORCORAN: We are live here at Sumud Freedom Camp in the Palestinian village of Sarura, where the Israeli military has moved in and started to take down our tents and push back on nonviolent protestors…
ILANA LEVINSON: Today’s episode takes place in the South Hebron Hills, where activists including Tom Corcoran, whose voice you just heard, gathered in May. The South Hebron Hills is an arid area of the West Bank that is part of Area C — under full control of the Israeli military.
With the systematic expansion of Israeli settlements and pressure from the military, the Palestinians who live in the area are at constant threat of home demolitions and displacement. And in some villages, no structures or people remain.
Fadal Amer used to call the cave-dwelling village of Sarura home, but he was forced out in 1997 by violence from nearby Israeli settlers who burned his crops and poisoned his wells. Two years later, the IDF declared Sarura part of Firing Zone 918, evicting the remaining residents. Though Fadal was forced to leave 20 years ago, the key to his cave still hangs off of his belt.
This May, Fadal Amer attempted to return home, with the support of a historic coalition of Israelis, Palestinians, and diaspora Jews. Marking the 50th year of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the activists gathered together to establish Sumud Freedom Camp, with the hope of reclaiming Sarura not just for Fadal, but for the whole community to someday return.
Sumud, built where Sarura once stood, translates in Arabic to steadfastness. Sumud became not just the name of the camp but also the coalition’s rallying cry, as activists took to social media with the hashtag #WeAreSumud. But despite the historic coalition, and social media efforts, the story of Sumud has largely been absent from mainstream news.
As fear and uncertainty overwhelm the region, it's hard to imagine such an unprecedented coalition of Israelis, Palestinians and diaspora Jews coming together. But today we’ll dive into just such a story. But today we'll hear from three American Jewish activists that were there, with their Palestinian and Israeli partners, building Sumud together, from the ground up.
I'm Ilana Levinson, and welcome to Unsettled.
MUSIC: Unsettled theme
ILANA: Unsettled is a new podcast about Israel-Palestine and the Jewish diaspora. We’re here to provide a space for the difficult conversations and diverse viewpoints that you might not hear in institutional American Jewish spaces.
I'm one of the producers of Unsettled and your host for today's episode.
While many different people were involved in building Sumud Freedom Camp, in this episode we’ll hear the perspective of three American Jewish activists who helped establish the camp, including Tom, who you heard from at the very beginning. Just a few weeks after returning to the US, they sat down in my living room in NYC to tell their story.
JEREMY SWACK: My name is Jeremy Swack, and I’m most recently involved in Open Hillel, though I’ve been involved in various other organizations including IfNotNow and J-Street U.
TOM CORCORAN: My name is Tom Corcoran and I’m a member of IfNotNow based in New York.
NAOMI DANN: I’m Naomi Dann and I work with Jewish Voice for Peace.
ILANA: Jeremy, Tom, and Naomi were there with the Center for Jewish Non-Violence, one of the organizations that formed the coalition. And after months of planning, they along with more than 300 activists prepared to march to Sarura on Friday, May 19. But secrecy was needed.
JEREMY: because it was uncertain that we would even be able to access the land.
ILANA: In fact, most of the group was kept in the dark about some key details until the very last minute--including the name and location of the village itself.
NAOMI: We didn’t know what it was, no one knew what it was, that was like the most closely kept secret cuz we knew that the army could easily put up a checkpoint and prevent us from getting to the land we were going to.
JEREMY: That’s why part of our group went down the night before and slept in a village nearby to ensure that at least some of us would be able to get there.
ILANA: Tom was one of those who camped close to the meetup site.
TOM: There were about 60 of us, we stayed on a roof, it was pretty uncomfortable actually.
ILANA: The next morning though, the army didn't stop anyone, and the activists from the 6 organizations: the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, Combatants for Peace, Holy Land Trust, Youth Against Settlements, All That’s Left: Anti-Occupation Collective and Popular Resistance Committee for the South Hebron Hills came together to march to Sarura. Fadal Amer led the group, as people chanted and waved flags. Issa Amro, founder of Youth Against Settlements, was among those who led chants.
ISSA AMRO: 1-2-3 (1-2-3) / Palestine will be free (Palestine will be free)
ILANA: But while there was lots of excitement, there was also discomfort.
NAOMI: I know that most American Jews have never been in a rally with Palestinian flags, and often that’s really triggering or scary or super uncomfortable for people, and all of a sudden, it was this really politically diverse group of Jews, working like very much following the lead of Palestinians who had designed this camp, and working alongside Israeli activists and Palestinian activists, and people had a Palestinian flag in their hands for the very first time, and I looked a couple of people, and they looked at their hand, and looked at the flag, and it was okay! And it was great. And it was like, this actually feels right in this moment.
TOM: One of the most powerful things was waving Palestinian flags, joining together as a coalition and coming into the land, a land that people had not been able to be in for decades.
ILANA: When the group arrived at Sarura, there was barely a trace of the cave dwelling village that had once stood there - a few broken down walls in an otherwise deserted landscape.
TOM: After 20 years of not being used, there was a lot of work to do.
ILANA: Knowing that settlers or the army could arrive at any time, the activists got to work. Some followed Fadal Amer to his cave
NAOMI: He was wearing a key that hung off of his belt: a big rusty key that fit the lock on the gate that entered the cave that he had been born in and that we were reclaiming with him
ILANA: Like Fadel Amer, many Palestinians still carry the keys to their old homes. The key is a symbol of the “right of return,” a movement that began in 1948, when Palestinians were displaced during the establishment of Israel.
NAOMI: A lot of people left with their keys in their pockets, and didn’t know that they would never be able to go back, and so those keys are really powerful, and it was amazing to see--he was literally wearing that key, and we could be there for the moment where he could use that key again.
TOM: Seeing Fadel returning to his cave, finally opening that door for the first time, that was something that was just undeniable, it felt right to be there and to be doing this work and supporting that work.
ILANA: In order to build the camp, as well as restore the caves, groups of activists hurried to rebuild stone walls -- and cleared out bugs from inside caves. Others began setting up a large tent:
TOM: The simple act of doing that physical labor together: digging out rocks, moving them around, setting up a wall, setting up a tent--being able to do that, it was a huge equalizer, and it was really humbling.
ILANA: As work progressed, Fadel Amer spent time with the activists. While he spoke both Arabic and Hebrew, some of the Americans only knew English.
NAOMI: he was the most warm and welcoming person and you didn’t need a shared language to know that. Like, full of smiles, and he was greeting everyone, constantly checking in on everyone.
JEREMY: I think he really spoke to the Palestinian culture of not just hospitality but immense generosity. He was really hosting us in a lot of ways, even though we were hoping to build Sumud Camp, this was his home, and he had invited us to his land and to his home to do this work.
ILANA: Still, even this homecoming was shadowed by the threat of confrontation.
NAOMI: We started establishing things that felt more permanent, and we started looking over our shoulders, like “Okay, when’s the army going to come?” We know that this is a firing zone, they’ve forbidden Palestinians to be here, and they could come at any time and kick us out.
ILANA: But as the sun set, those in the camp who observed shabbat gathered together. Amid more traditional shabbat music, Souli Khatib from Combatants for Peace played the flute.
JEREMY: I think there was a certain point, after we had been there about a day, I felt very comfortable in the camp, and believed that the camp would continue to thrive, even though in the back of my head I intellectually knew that the camp was probably going to be destroyed, which it ended up being. And that was just a really big wake up call. I think for me and for many of us, was a tiny window into what living under occupation is, is you’re not sure when the army is going to come and destroy anything.
ILANA: The next day, as some continued to observe the sabbath and rest, others continued to work. While cement was mixed and poured on the floor of Fadal Amer’s cave, music played, people danced and there was even a makeshift game of limbo.
Saturday night the group gathered in the large tent for Havdalah, a Jewish ceremony marking the close of Shabbat. Among the songs they sang was an adaptation of the anti-Apartheid song, “Courage.”
ACTIVISTS: Sarura / My friend / You do not walk alone / We will / Walk with you / And sing your spirit home
NAOMI: it was late midnight on Saturday, we had bonfires going, we had music playing, people were still cooking food, and all of a sudden, there were a series of lights that came over the hill, and within like 10 seconds we all realized that the army was coming into the camp.
TOM: They went straight for our generator, they went straight for some of the tents and structures we had set up.
ILANA: Many of the activists began recording and livestreaming on Facebook, creating hundreds of witnesses around the world. Despite having no demolition order, the army quickly destroyed most of the camp.
NAOMI: We went back and forth between being totally totally powerless, because there was nothing that we could do, because we were up against such a force that had so much power, and also so powerful, to be holding hands with people who I trusted, who I’d built community with.
ILANA: When all that remained was the large tent, the activists responded quickly. Jeremy and others who made it inside, linked arms in the darkness. The army began tearing down the tent and tried to break the group apart:
ACTIVISTS: You’re hurting him! You’re hurting him! You’re hurting him! You’re hurting him! You’re hurting him! Please! Please! We are nonviolent! We are sitting in our campsite in peace!
ILANA: Gathered close, and low to the ground as the soldiers loomed over them, they turned to song.
ACTIVISTS: We will build this world with love / Dai dai dai dai dai dai dai dai / We will build this world with love / Dai dai dai dai dai dai dai dai
ILANA: Outside the tent, Tom and the rest of the activists were steps away from another group of soldiers. As they chanted and sang, Tom livestreamed the raid:
TOM: We are here because we believe in freedom and dignity for all peoples. We believe in the right of Palestinians to their lands. We are here protesting against fifty years of occupation. And we are here as part of a nonviolent resistance.
TOM: I saw what we were doing, the risk we were taking, and I knew the risk our Palestinian partners, that Fadal, that the people who were returning to Sarura were taking just by being there, and the risks that they face every day, and for me, that was something where we had to film it, we had to report back on it, because there was something so viscerally brutal.
ILANA: With the tent almost fully collapsed, the activists stood in a tight formation and grasped at the tarp in fistfulls. At the direction of a Palestinian leader, they lowered the tarp and sat on top, relinking arms. From Jeremy's recording you can hear as the army continued to cut and tear the tent from underneath them.
ACTIVISTS: When the world is sick / Can no one be well / But I dreamt we were all beautiful and strong
ILANA: After about an hour - almost no structures remained. With part of the tarp confiscated - the army began loading back into their trucks. As the army left, the activists chanted a promise.
ACTIVISTS: We will rebuild (together)! We will rebuild (together)! We will rebuild (together)! We will rebuild (together)!
ILANA: The group gathered amid the strewn mattresses and belongings. The medics attended to those who had been punched, kicked and choked. Others sent messages and updates to the world. A fire and sleeping space was quickly assembled.
While some went to rest, Tom joined the nightwatch in case settlers or soldiers returned again. Tom recounted sitting around the fire with Palestinians, including three men from the town of Umm-El Khair who had partnered with their group - the Center for Jewish Nonviolence- earlier in the week.
TOM: We were tired, we were cold, we were out there, and then they were just there making tea for us, or didn’t have sugar for tea so instead gave us some mango juice, and it was just like this thing where, okay there’s work to be done and we need to set up and this was a hard moment, but we can still spend time with each other and take care of each other and sit around a fire in the middle of the night. And so that was something where, though I was exhausted, being able to have that experience immediately after was really moving and really healing.
ILANA: When the activists woke up on Sunday morning, the army had not returned. Before starting to rebuild they gathered in a circle.
ACTIVISTS: Light is returning / Even though this is the darkest hour / No one can hold back / Back the dawn
JEREMY: It was definitely a moment for me that solidified what Sumud means: Steadfastness. In that, immediately as Tom said, some people began to rebuild, and when we woke up in the morning, we were rebuilding that camp.
ILANA: Using the tarp that the army had not confiscated, they rebuilt the tent in front of Fadel’s cave. Though there was more work to be done, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence delegation had to leave later that afternoon.
TOM: there was this really deep feeling that we were just leaving the people that we had worked with and built this camp with, and even though that was always part of the plan, that as the Center for Jewish Nonviolence we were going to be there for that specific amount of time and then leave… I don’t know, I felt a lot of guilt. And I think that it’s our responsibility to bring this message back. But it also felt hard to not still be there and keep the work going.
ILANA: But before they left, Fadel addressed the group outside his cave.
JEREMY: He spoke to us through a translator, and he actually apologized for the events that had happened in the Israeli raid the previous night, which… is just unbelievable, that he apologized to us for that. That was...really something. I don’t know what to say about it.
ILANA: Two weeks after returning from Palestine, when we recorded this interview, Naomi, Jeremy and Tom were still processing their time at Sumud. We asked them how the story of Sumud was being received by the American Jewish public.
NAOMI: Well… I don’t know how many people in the American Jewish community know about it still. And I think the point of the trip was to be American Jews there experiencing occupation and taking part in this direct action that would get some press that would tell a story to people back home to change their minds? And I think that was the right approach and strategy for that plan, but there hasn’t been enough attention on it.
ILANA: Naomi gave a couple reasons for this, including Donald Trump’s visit to Israel which happened at the same time, but also:
NAOMI: It didn’t make as much news because I think the army played us really smart. They didn’t destroy the camp totally, they let us rebuild, they didn’t arrest people so there wasn’t something to rally around, and the media wasn’t there that first day because there wasn’t violence and the media follows violence, and so it wasn’t as big of a story as we had hoped it would be.
ILANA: And some who have heard about Sumud have criticized the action, arguing that no one is allowed to live in Sarura, and the army’s destruction of the camp was justified. They argue that the activists should not have been there in the first place. But Naomi sees it differently.
NAOMI: I mean, that is the whole history of civil disobedience, is about breaking laws that we believe are unjust, and so people who make that argument are missing the point. The reason we were there to say these laws are unjust and the way the system is set up is unjust. And so that’s why we’re going to go directly against it. And some of the most powerful civil disobedience actions are when you literally break the law you’re going to change in order to make a statement about how it needs to change.
ILANA: The people of Sarura and others from evicted villages in Firing Zone 918 have been fighting in the Israeli courts to have their homes back, but not only have they not been allowed to return, they also haven't been given any compensation for the land they lost.
TOM: It’s not possible for a Palestinian to get permission to build on that land. Even while at the same time there’s a settlement that we could see, the entire time, just right there.
ILANA: But, they still felt that their presence - the American and International presence at the camp - had enabled the the story of Sumud to reach more people than it otherwise would have.
TOM: People i know in my life, or people in the lives of people who were on the trip who paid attention because they were there, or because American Jews were there. Whereas if it were just something happening to palestinians, or some Israelis in support, it wouldn’t have gotten as much attention. That’s absolutely true.
ILANA: Furthermore, the story of Sumud’s construction wasn't just an attempt to make news or about the resulting nighttime raid, which is what the news so often focuses on.
TOM: And then the other part is that it wasn’t just for show. It was fadal, his family, people actually coming back to Sarura and being able to enter their homes for the first time in at least 20 years. So knowing that this possible and that that is still happening, that’s really powerful, and that’s also a story that we need to be sharing and we need to be continuing to get out there.
ILANA: But perhaps the greatest obstacle for sharing this story is how hard it can be to talk about the occupation
NAOMI: I talked to a lot of people who feel really disempowered to talk about what’s happening, and they say “Oh, like Israel-Palestine conflict…” I’ve been told “It’s too complicated, I have never really been there, I don’t feel like I’m an authority to be able to speak about it.” I work really hard to help people dispel that fear. Yes it’s complicated, yes there are multiple narratives, yes, the history is really complex, and also it’s very very clear that something really wrong is going on what’s happening right now is a pretty simple wrong.
JEREMY: Since I’ve been back, when people have asked me “What was it like, how was your experience”-- the only thing I’ve really been able to muster is, saying at first, “The occupation is really really really really bad.” And I think that speaks to what Naomi was saying, that this is simply a wrong. There is complexity and narratives and history and whatnot but the occupation itself is wrong, must be ended, and we as diaspora Jews hold immense power in ending it.
TOM: It’s not just a distant system, it something that people enforce, and it’s something that many enforce with cruelty. UM and that’s something that I think people need to know, that it’s not just about, oh, there are all of these competing narratives. It’s also a lived reality, where people’s movement and rights and lives are restricted. I think that’s just something that being there, was so undeniable. And that’s something I’m committed to continuing to make that known to people who are in my life and people I have these conversations with. It’s...yeah. It’s not a myth. It’s very very real.
PART 2: YOUTH OF SUMUD (2021)
MAX: So ever since we released that episode in 2017, I’ve been wondering... what happened to Sarura after the internationals left? And about a year ago, I got to see for myself. In fact, I spent New Year’s Eve in the very same cave.
That was only possible because of a group called Youth of Sumud, which was created in the wake of that 2017 action. How they have maintained this cave for almost four years, and the risks they have taken to do so -- that’s the subject of this episode.
My name is Max Freedman, and this is Unsettled.
MUSIC: Unsettled theme
MAX: Samiha Huraini is one of the founders of Youth of Sumud. When we spoke, on December 31, 2019, she was 20 years old, studying English literature at university.
The part of the West Bank where Samiha lives, and where Youth of Sumud does most of their work, is called the South Hebron Hills. It’s also known as Masafer Yatta, in reference to the nearby city of Yatta. Over the last couple of decades, a lot of people whose families have roots in this area have had to move to Yatta -- for jobs and education, but also often because Israeli authorities have confiscated or destroyed their homes, and prevented them from building any infrastructure. Many experts say that this is part of a broader strategy of packing Palestinians into cities, so as to open up more and more of the land of the West Bank for Jewish settlement.
As I sat with Samiha on a couple of big rocks near her home village of Tuwani, all around us, there were activists planting olive trees. In the road just below us was a unit of Israeli border police, watching. And behind them, perched on the top of a hill, a walled settlement.
Here’s my conversation with Samiha Huraini.
MAX: So my friend Emily was here a couple of years ago and she was at the sumud freedom camp with CJNV. Was that before or after you started youth of Sumud?
SAMIHA HURAINI: No. Uh, you know, at the beginning of the, uh, of the camp of the idea of this village, there there was a lot of international people, uh, Jewish, uh, fighting for, uh, against occupation, non violent, uh, that were supporting this, uh, this idea just, uh, step by step that people to start to leave and leave so the people start to be few and then everyone leaved. So the village became alone again. So that here Youth of Sumud born that, uh, we have to complete what the others was doing and to lead this idea until the end.
MAX: Since they built the camp in Sarura with the caves. So you. Since and the internationals left. So youth of Sumud you had to stay there every night in order to keep it from being torn down. Is that what did what did you have to do in order to keep it from being destroyed?
SAMIHA: We have to stay there 24 hours. They have to feel that there is a Palestinian people there and we have to back the family again. We have to encourage the family to back again because it just the one solution that we can protect the village. You have done it to encourage and to make the people interesting to back again. You know, it's really difficult to back up like people for their own houses, or own cave. After twenty years, you cannot imagine what violent that they saw. That they feel. That how much was hard for them to leave their home. Just they leave it because I'm, I'm sure that they saw very big of violent they was scared about their children life, their own life, their wife life. So they just escape from that because that the the more the violence that they saw when they live in that village every night and every morning. And. And as I told you, there is no life service no electricity no water nothing. Also encourage you to stay. So there was there was stopped anything that you are going to do to make you strong and stay there. They cut the water. They cut the electricity. There is nothing, nothing to make you stay there. So they make you weak and weak and weak. Just go. And scare you scare your children. For so that people for sure was scared for their children and for their life. So they just go. So now it's really difficult to back them again. So after one year of cleaning, restorate and, uh. Bring attention and make it bigger and cleaning, everything's preparing. We decide they came like three or four times in the weekend. And slept and preparing their stuff. And in their caves. [104.1s]
VOICE: One minute.
MAX: Someone has approached Samiha with news. They speak in Arabic for a while. Remember, it’s December 31st.
SAMIHA: So I'm preparing for the evening things, evening party, and he was asking me to go for the camp now.
MAX: Okay, you need to go now?
SAMIHA: All of us.
MAX: Oh okay. We all need to go now.
SAMIHA: Yeah. Because they make this area closed military zone so we cannot do our activity here. So we have to move.
MAX: How did you find. How do you find out when they decide it's a closed military zone?
SAMIHA: It just stops. Well, I don't know. You know, this is crazy that something you are planning for it like months. And they just come and tell you you cannot do that closed military if you will be there. You'll be arrested or you'll be. It's something.
MAX: So so the place where we were going to do the event, the party tonight. We can't do it there anymore? Is that what he said?
SAMIHA: Yeah. And we have to go to do it in the camp. In the cave.
MAX: We have to go and do it in Sarura.
SAMIHA: In the cave yeah.
MAX: Instead. Okay.
SAMIHA: Yeah.
MAX: So that's where we're gonna. We're gonna go to Sarura now.
SAMIHA: Yeah. Was planning to light that big tree in the Sumud Freedom Garden that also it's one of the ideas of Youth of Sumud. Just it will not go. It will not work. All of us will be arrested. And we don't want that for anyone. And they will confiscate everything you will have it here, so. We can go there to do it. They will not stop the idea just they stop us to be here in the place. So, just we will celebrate it together in Sarura.
MAX: So so the family that the family that used to lived in Sarura a long time ago, they have not moved back.
SAMIHA: No, because it was destroyed before we start to work on it. It's really was destroying. There was no life, nothing. It was really just, uh, caves full of stone and rubbish that the settlers was putting inside to make it's dirty, to destroy it, to don't make it's able to be life again. The old people that they used to live, the grandfather of mom and dad's caves that was they was died. So now their sons and their daughters that living in Yatta that we are encouraging them to come back. So now weekly, they came three, four time and, uh, they came start to bring their stuff. They started prepping their caves with their stuff. So it's for us a big succeed.
MAX: So they're so there are still people from there, still people from youth of Sumud who stay there 24 hours a day, all these years later.
SAMIHA: Yeah. Yeah for sure. So some of us is here. Some of them was in the camp. So we cannot leave it like all of us come and focus on this action and leave the caves. No. You have to always be, uh, some of us have to be there. To be, uh, not one. For sure.
MAX: And at the beginning, all of the young people in youth of Sumud, they were all from Tuwani and the villages around here.
SAMIHA: Actually, when we start, we start a few people, I was me, my older brother, there was a friends around was really fewer like when I was six seven. It's not enough for them. They can arrested us in one minute, in one Jeep even they don't be so tired. So we decide also to bigger the idea of to bigger the group to be more strong, because if we still few under this occupation we would be all arrested or will be attacked and we will be in stuck and we will never succeed to create the idea of the Youth of Sumud. So we started to public the idea around. For example, for me in my university I speak with everyone who was interesting or who's ready actually to be with this part. If he want to be an activist and he want to resist for Palestine. Also, my brother do the same. Our friend the same. We have now numbers of people like you can see we're around 20. So it's, uh, for us, it's not a very big number, enough number to protect this village and, to be enough to going around. Some people stay. Some people go to act.
SAMIHA: And one of the important things that we used to do as a Youth of Sumud that I am really proud of that. As I told you, we are a human rights defender and we are trying to to help the people that their rights is violated. The important right it's education. That is really violated in this place. For example, there is, uh, uh, schoolchildren that they came from Tuba village, that it's after these settlements that you see. It's you see this mount is full of settlements, settlers and violent settlers. After them. There is another village. So they have to pass the settlements every morning and every afternoon to come for the school and to return for their home. So they need the help to be protected because they have to come through the settlements in the middle of the settlements. They have to be protected from the settlers. And because they was attacked many time, they was hospitalized many time from the settlers, um, violent.
MAX: The the children.
SAMIHA: The children, the children of the school, they beat them, they throw them a stone, they with a stick, they follow them with a car to try, try to drive on them. They're still children. They're really small. So we decide to take this responsibility as a young people university student and all these things that we have to deal with our daily life, with our daily family and with our studying and with the with the camp. So the camps start to be our second home that we do everything we do. It's every day like you start to connect it with our life. Somehow.
MUSIC: “Ervira”
MAX: OK. So can you. Tell me what happened to your brother Sami.
SAMIHA: Yes, it's a sad story. As I told you, that we are, uh, restorating the caves for the families. So we decide to build for them a bathroom.
MAX: At Sarura? Same place?
SAMIHA: Yeah. In the same village. So it's a big, uh, like, dangerous decision to build something in C Area. Because you're not allow as a Palestinian to build any things. So we start to build this. We would have to do it because no one would come to live in anywhere in the world without bathroom. So we have to encourage them and to build bathroom to to make their life easy. So we started to build this bathroom. One day. My brother was helping us to to build this bathroom he was. I told you that Sarura is the middle of the two illegal settlements and outposts. So the settlers used to pass through this village to connect this together, to go and return.
SAMIHA: So my brother was in the middle of the road and he was helping in bringing some stone and some stuff for the to build this bathroom. So there was a two settlers in a quad. Four by four that they was driving. So they was going to kill him they keep driving on him. He was really shocked and he don't know what he have to do. He started to run and he just they keep following him because they have this, uh, quad that can drive on the stone and the bumpy road. So he just while he was running, he fell down and his right leg was still in the road. So it's just they drive on his right leg two time. They make for him to crush in his right leg. They like drive on him and they far away and they ran away. So we just.
MAX: They drove over his leg. And then they went in reverse and they drove back.
SAMIHA: Yeah. Yeah. They drive the first time and they go back and drive again. So they make for him to crush on his right legs and then they just drive and they return for the settlements. So we was really shocked from that. And we was running for him. And, uh, when we came, Sami was not awake. And when he wake, he was such shouting from pain and he was really screaming. And we don't know what you have to do because we cannot move him because it's a bones and he was he was really shouting from pain and cannot do anything. We was like we was thinking our hands was cuffed. Like, we don't we don't know what we have to do.
SAMIHA: For sure we call the ambulance just when directly when the when they like the police, the army know that they do a checkpoint. And so the, uh, the ambulance was late one hour to come and to reach the.
MAX: Wait so the ambulance before it even reached you had to go through a checkpoint.
SAMIHA: They stop in the entrance of the village of Tuwani. That's lead for the.
MAX: So they made a flying checkpoint so they couldn't get so that ambulance wouldn't get to you.
SAMIHA: Yeah, they was late. So. So he was really late to come closer. Like one hour. He was on the crowd and shouting. And so they just came and they and they took him for Hebron hospital. And, uh, he have to wait two days until he do his surgery. And he was he's still two weeks in the hospital and he was at home for two months. He cannot walking until he was like. And after two months was not really very well walking.
SAMIHA: When Sami was attacked, I was thinking that now like the other guys will be scared and they will not keep going in the idea they will stop in this point. Just was to make me really proud. That when Sami went to the hospital they back and they keep working in the in the bathroom because they say this is the reason why Sami was in the hospital and why he was attacked. So it's our responsibility to complete what he was doing. And he will he will out. He will found the bathroom, already built. And they really do. What they will say and say. We came back and he found the bathroom was already built.
MAX: And how old was he when this happened?
SAMIHA: Eh, well, last year, uh, he was like around. Now he's like twenty. And how big was twenty. The same age of me now. Yeah.
MUSIC: “Ervira”
MAX: And how about can you tell me about your younger brother.
SAMIHA: Yeah. Hamudi. Yeah. Is, uh, fifteen years old. He have had experience with occupation army because he was arrested for three time. When he was 13. He was arrested 14 the same and fifteen the same. He's trying to be an activist from his children and life like he want to be an activist because my father is an active my grandmom is an active. Everyone in my family is active. So you want to be an activist while he was 15 years old and 14 and 13.
SAMIHA: The first time he was arrested, he was arrested in the camp where we work. In the cave where we work and where we live. So he was arrested without his parents for many of hours and he was interrogated in very bad way that it's make him scared during the night, because he's a child and he cannot understand that you had a policeman interrogate him for no reason. Because he is just sitting in a camp with his family and having his dinner. It's not doesn't make sense. That's what make my father call for him, a special doctor to speak with him and to deal with him.
SAMIHA: And, uh, the second one was fourteen years old, that he was in an action to, uh, to clean the road for the cars, for the people to come reach their own village. He was helping he was arrested for the second time. It was the same. He was interrogated for many hours.
SAMIHA: And fifteen years old. A few months ago, he was arrested with my father, with my uncle in the same time because they told them that you are trying to entering in the settlements. And when they took him, They let my father and my uncle come back and they keep him. They. He slept the night in Ofer jail and he say it was the worst night of my life because they bring him in a room, with a with another two prisoner, Palestinian prisoner. He say that there was a sound of water that is going tick tick it's to make them stressed. And he said there was a light that turn off and turn on, to like, it's just to make you crazy and looking what's going on and scared you. So then. And the next day. Hamudi say they bring for us some food, there was keep the handcuffed. He was stay until the morning with handcuffs. He told them, OK, I want to eat. Can you free my hand? Can you take it over because I want to eat. And they say no for sure. No, it's not my work. You can if you manage to eat, eat. If you don't manage, it's not my business if you eat or not. So he said that I was trying to eat with my hand was cuffed.
SAMIHA: And then they say, OK, now one hour we have to go for court and he say, OK. And then he put they put him in a car that is for especially for the prisoner. And he say it was really hard because everything's iron. I cannot like. When they was driving. And they have just a small window in the top of the car. And he was Hamudi, he really is one of the people that he he cannot still without breathe for a long time. So he was shouting that he want to breathe. So they opened for him a bit of the of these windows. And then they go to close it again and he say they was drive driving really, really slow because they know that him was in really bad situation in that car. He say that this is the most thing that I hated, that the car part when they was driving me for my court. And then I found myself in Qalandiya like checkpoint. They tell him, you have you don't have any court, so go home.
SAMIHA: And after this they raid my home to arrested him. They raid my home like after 3 weeks after they arrested him. And I was asking, what are you doing here, give me the order that you can raid my home and all these things. And he was not answering me any things. He was just looking in the house. And then Hamudi came when he saw all this thing and he stop him, really badly in the wall by his neck with his hand and the give me your ID. And he starts shouting on him and they say, stay calm. And he's still a child he don't have ID because he's under 18. He don't have an ID. He said, where is your father? And my father was around in the village. So he's also start to run and they don't accept that my father can enter. They do my home a closed military zone so no one can enter. And my father say it's my home, it's my family and the they have to be sure that he's my father. I say he's my father. And then we just take him inside. When they was going out, they told him in Hebrew like I hope to don't. It will be better for you to don't see you again. And he say Hamudi say just you are coming for my home. How like. You are coming for me. I'm not coming for you. What are you doing in my home. And he said just you will be lucky if I will not meet you again.
MUSIC: “Drone Birch”
SAMIHA: So this is my brother's story. And I was feeling really sad all this time that I saw that was happening for my family, for my brothers or for my family, my mom, how she feel when her sons or daughters be in like this dangerous situation, just we believe that it's all all this for the land for Palestine and we will succeed. The idea, by the way. Because the idea is idea and it will keep life and no one can kill any idea inside you. No one can stop it. So I believe in that because we believe in that we will keep going and we will never stop. Even that there was a lot of challenge and make us weak every day. Just don't know that all the challenge that they put make us strong because we are we are trying to end the occupation and I hope that it will happen one day.
MAX: I spoke to Samiha Huraini in the village of Tuwani in December 2019, and our conversation was originally released in January 2021. Samiha’s brother Sami -- the one she talked about who had his leg run over by settlers -- that’s the same Sami whose voice you heard at the very beginning of this episode.
Sami bore witness last Saturday, May 22, when settlers from the nearby outpost Havat Ma’on set fire to the fields near Tuwani, and tried to destroy the cave in Sarura that Samiha and the Youth of Sumud have been maintaining all this time. The next morning, Sami posted this video to Facebook.
SAMI More or less one hour ago, the Israeli occupation forces raided my village of Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills. In the campaign of arrests and raids of the home of the Palestinians, searching the homes… Until this moment, three Palestinians from the village got arrested. And we thought that they are leaving but it looks the operation of arrests is still going on in the village.
MAX: Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Ilana Levinson, and me, Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions.
Special thanks to Yoshi Fields, who co-produced our original episode, “The Story of Sumud,” back in 2017, and to Oriel Eisner, Emily Hilton, Isaac Kates Rose, and everyone at the Center for Jewish Nonviolence who facilitated my trip to the South Hebron Hills last year.
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