Wedad Makhamreh
By Ali Awad
Wedad Makhamreh is a 47 years old Palestinian woman from Masafer Yatta. Despite all the Israeli occupation harassment against her home village, she is still struggling to keep a life and protect her family in their only home by grazing the flocks and cultivating the fields of her village, which Israel has now transformed into shooting fields, tank parking, and military bases. That's the reason why her only son Muhammad lost his right hand, after he stepped on an unexploded grenade left by the Israeli army next to thier house in the village of Al-Mirkiz in Masafer Yatta.
On May 2, 2018, the Israeli Civil Administration, guarded by the border police, carried out demolitions inside four Palestinian villages of Masafer Yatta: Jinba, Halaweh, Al Fakheit, and Wedad’s home village of Al-Mirkiz. That day 6 houses and 2 animal shelters – including those belonging to Wedad's family – were demolished. 9 solar panels, as the only source of energy, were confiscated, and 3 water tanks were destroyed. A total of 29 people, of which 10 were children, were left with no shelter. It wasn't enough that they demolished their homes, but the Border Police used violent method towards men and women and even arrested two Palestinian boys in Khirbet Al Fakheit. Entire families watched their homes while bulldozers burned them to the ground, leaving them without any place to spend the night.
Wedad's family’s only shelter is a room built of bricks and a roof of iron tin. It was demolished once before when it was only a tent made of pillars and cloth. At that time, they were able to rebuild that room, which is less than 40 square meters. Her family has been forced to live in a cave that they inherited from their ancestors due to the continuous demolition of their facilities. The family’s only livelihood is from sheep, and on that same day in May of 2018, the Civil Administration demolished their small barn. They rebuilt what they could, but they got a demolition order immediately again.
Wedad is from Al-Mirkiz, one of 12 Palestinians Villages located in the area occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta, exactly in the heart of so-called “Firing Zone 918”, which was declared in the early 1980s. Since then, Wedad – along with the thousands of Palestinians from this area – are living under threat of expulsion and eviction. In 1999, an actual evacuation took place: the Israeli army put the residents and their belongings in truck and transported them out of the area. A few months later, the residents were allowed to return to their homes with an interim injunction. Since then until May 4, 2022, the residents were in a legal battle with the Israeli army in the Israeli supreme court.
22 years later, the court ruled in favor of the army, giving them the green light to evacuate Wedad and her family with the other 2.800 people living in eight villages in Masafer Yatta, claiming that they need of their homes for fire training.
Even before the court permitted the Israeli army's firing activities at their home, the Israeli army was training soldiers inside their villages, and the shooting fields are just 100 meters away from Wedad’s house. Even the tanks drive over their caves and wheat fields. On January 8th 2021 , Her son Mohammad woke up to drive the family's tractor to the city of Yatta, to purchase food for the family and their sheep. When he was about to go, after he fed the flock in the morning, he went to usher the sheep back into the barn. He could hear the army training just a few meters away. As he ran behind his flock, he fell on an unexploded grenade, left by army exercises. It exploded in his body.
That was the last moment Mohammad remembers until he woke up at the hospital. The grenade fractured his right leg. Some of the shrapnel entered his body like the bullets and settled millimeters from his heart and stomach. And, worst of all, he lost his hand. Mohammad can no longer work to support his family, because he actually physically cannot.