Mufaqara - settlers on horses frighten herds
It was important for me to see what was happening with the Auda family whom we know from Lower Wadada located near the South Mount Hebron regional council, on road 317.
The family moves every summer to the land that belongs to them, about 1 km from the pillbox at the Shani intersection in front of Samu’.
At the beginning of winter, they will return to Lower Wadada. This year they arrived at a place called Al Atara, on July 7. There are nine children in the family, five girls and four boys. During the week, the children in Samu’ live in a house which belongs to a family with Rada, Ziad's second wife.
We met Ziad and his wife Fatma.
Ziad says that last Friday, 1.9.23, settlers arrived, boys on ATVs, from the Mikneh Yehuda farm,
the one next to Asael, of Israel Kaplan, who does not allow the Palestinians in his vicinity any peace.
They asked Fatma where her children and the flock were. She answered them that they were in the pasture and walked away. In response, she was shouted at (sorry I have to write this) and called Sharmuta. The meaning of the word, whore. In Arabic, this is a very offensive curse.
Meanwhile, Ziad was shepherding the flock in an area that the settlers have not yet discovered.
Ziad points to several white sacks in a plot next to where we are sitting which belonged to his neighbour. But the settlers had used the ATV on the Friday and trampled them with the wheels of the ATV on their way back.
From there we continued to Mufaqara to visit Fadel who had twin granddaughters a month ago. So, we went to visit and to congratulate him. But he was not there as he had found a temporary job.
We were sitting in a cave (a pungent smell of moss) with Samer, his daughter, 19, and Halima, his wife.
Halima says that in the morning of September 3, settlers came on horseback, while she was grazing the flock with her 12-year-old son Ahmad. They galloped amongst the sheep and scared them, as well as herself and her son. According to her this is routine.
This happened again on Friday two days before our visit, this time to Fadel and the children. They were grazing the flock in their own territory, near the illegal outpost of Avigail. A settler from Avigail arrived with an ATV, drove around quickly and again, the goal was to drive them away.
The army arrived, but unsurprisingly, demanded that Fadel leave his territory, claiming that it was state territory. With no choice, he left, and was forced to move to a pasture in a distant area.
This time we were able to see the transport of the children by Nasser Adra from nearby At-Tuwani. The school where the children of the nearby villages study is in At-Tuwani.
Nasser set Fadel’s and Halila’s children down ,4 in number, and continued to Khalet A-Daba’.
The settlers do whatever comes to their mind and life is terrible for the Palestinians.