Alhalawa village by Hamdan Huraini

The village of Halawa, which is southeast of the city of Yatta, is inhabited by approximately 200

people. These residents rely on livestock breeding and agriculture, and inhabit simple houses of

tents, caves, and small rooms. The village is considered Tarkhia, historical, because of its caves

that are hundreds of years old. It is also among the villages of Masafer Yatta, which suffer from

the practices of the Israeli occupation on a daily basis, especially after the court's decision to

give the green light to the Israeli occupation army to train the military inside their lands and

village.

In this village lives Hajja Sabria Abu Arameho who is more than seventy years old. I met her

and talked to her about the suffering that she both experienced and experiences in her daily life

in the village of Halawa. She has a strong personality, a good memory, and speaks well in terms

of describing her life.

I sat in the cave where Hajja Sabriya lives. From the first glance, it was clear that the cave was

more than 100 years old. Moments after Hajja Sabriya prepared beautiful and wonderful

Palestinian tea, she offered me a cup of tea and sat down. She began to feel more comfortable

with me, so I introduced myself to her and we started talking about her situation in general.

While we were having tea, I asked her about the cave. She looked at me and said, “I got

married in this cave when I was eighteen years old. I am now seventy-three years old. I’ve lived

here in this cave for more than fifty years, but you see my husband is also seventy-three years

old and he was born in this cave. My husband’s father dug this cave. That means that it exceeds

one-hundred years.” She continued, “It means a lot to me. This cave is my home, and my whole

life I have lived in it. I love this. This simple cave for me is a heaven.”

Next, I asked her about what happened when they were displaced from their village in 1999?

She sighed as if she remembered something terrifying and frightening and was silent for a

moment. Then she said, “Listen, my son, that day was the hardest day of my life. When the

Israeli occupation army came to my house and started searching the house and taking the

contents of the house out and I was trying to stop them, but I couldn't…that was the first time

they came, and when they left, one of the soldiers said, ‘You have to leave here, this house is

not yours.’ So I told him to go and said, ‘I was born here and I will never leave my house.’”

A week passed and then they returned, accompanied by large trucks and a large number of

soldiers. “When they reached my house,” Hajja continued, “They started to put all the content of

the house inside the truck, and I tried to stop them but to no avail. They put me and my family

inside the truck and threw us in an area near the village of Umm Al-Khair. There were many

families from Masafer Yatta there that were forcibly deported from their homes.”

“I did not stay there long, and I returned to my house in my village (sweetness). I rode on the

donkey and came back with some things. I returned with my husband and my child, and I stayed

there in my house and woke up early and prepared breakfast for the family. Moments later, the

soldiers came to my house and asked me to leave. I refused and told them this is my house. But

one of the soldiers told me, ‘Go from here or I will kill you and you will leave dead.’ I told him,

‘You can kill me, but you cannot force me to leave my house. I will die here and I will not go.’

He got angry with me and asked the bulldozer to come immediately. He went over to the

bulldozer and asked the driver to dig a big hole. He ordered the soldiers to collect the contents

of the house and put them in the hole. They put everything in the hole and ordered the driver to

put dirt on the items and bury them.

I only said one thing to him, ‘I will not go, do what you want. For here I am like an olive tree

planted in this land, and I will live and die in it. Go from here, come on, you have completed your

work after you destroyed the house, and I will return what you destroyed, O Muharram.’

I continued this as I lived in that bitter period, but we returned and rebuilt and lived happily

despite the Israeli occupation, which punishes all the villages in Masafer Yatta.”

I asked her for her opinion on the Israeli court's new decision to allow the army to train in

Masafer Yatta. She laughed and said, “This is not new. We were born here and we will die here.

We have beautiful and sad memories in it. We will not be able to leave except for our graves,

and we will be buried here in them. This is our destiny, and we do not live far from our home and

we will not be able to die away from it.”

Living in freedom is one of the rights of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta. It is a human right

demand and a fundamental freedom guaranteed by international la

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