The first thing we say is Alhamdulillah

For as long as my generation can remember, our community of Masafer Yatta in the south of the West Bank has been standing on the edge of a cliff. For decades, settlers have been attacking our homes, the Israeli occupation forces have been demolishing them, and the highest ranks of government have been planning to remove us from the region entirely. Things had already been bad for a long time when Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, settlers themselves, were elected to power in 2022 – but we sensed that it was about to get much worse. We began to experience firsthand the intensified violence of settlers now fully and openly backed by the state. 

But after 7 October, the violence became a whole new story. We saw how the international community’s unconditional support of the genocide in Gaza emboldened the settlers in the West Bank in general, and in Masafer Yatta specifically. They started to kill Palestinians on sight. For the past sixteen months, it has seemed they have no limits – that when they see a Palestinian they have to kill them. Last year, in the days following 7 October, settlers critically wounded Zakaria Al-Adara in his home village of Tuwani: they simply approached and shot him at point blank. 

The settler responsible was never even charged. And that is business as usual: due to the lack of action taken against them, the settlers have received the message that they can act with total impunity. They think of us as enemies, and indeed we have become enemies. They target our children, feeling that they will grow up and take revenge – so they try to kill them before they grow up. For over two decades, it has been routine practice for parents and activists to accompany children on their way to school for fear that settlers will appear and shoot. 

These fears are not exaggerated: the danger to our lives has become constant and enveloping. When you go outside to document settler violence or demolitions, at any moment, someone might shoot and kill you without reason. The settlers have a list of excuses they can use against you, excuses that will be upheld by Israeli law. At any moment, anyone from Masafer Yatta may lose their life. Even now, as I sit here and write, perhaps someone will call to say that a settler has shot a Palestinian who was grazing his sheep, or perhaps to say that a whole gang of settlers have turned up at a Palestinian family’s doorstep.

The circle in action

On 3 February, settlers launched one such attack on my village, Susiya. It was dark and difficult to tell exactly how many settlers there were, but we could see that they included children. They entered the village with an ATV and on horses, chasing the Palestinian children with knives. They started destroying things, breaking windows, slashing tires, and puncturing the tanks that provide water to the whole village. Shem Tov Luski, one settler well known to me, having endured years of his violence, went to one house and threatened the head of the family that he would take his life in his own home. The children hid in the corner of the house and listened to the stones breaking the glass windows and the noise of the water pouring out of the tank. 

After 40 minutes, the Israeli police finally came, accompanied by the army. There is a military tower nearby, so we know they could have come earlier had they wanted to. This is more evidence of the coordinated relationship between the settlers, the army, and the government – the circle that runs the occupation. 

The police asked many questions about evidence, asking for pictures of the settlers who perpetrated the attack. But the settlers know, and everyone knows, that if they cover their faces with masks, nobody will bother to take steps to identify them. They know that the army protects them, that the police will come late, that they can do whatever they want. They feel they are untouchable. 

And following Trump’s promise of mass population displacement and ethnic cleansing a couple of days after this attack, the situation in Masafer Yatta has become even worse still. The settlers have used this time to jump three steps ahead. The more Palestinians they displace, the more they entrench facts on the ground, the less likely their violence is to be hindered and their settlements dismantled.  

The plan is clear: displacing Palestinians and forcing us into Area A, taking control of our vacated land and laying claim to it. And then, once this goal is achieved, there is the larger goal: no more Palestinians in Palestine. It’s a process of ethnic cleansing. This is the history of the occupation until now. If you look at the history of this place, you can see how many genocides the state committed against the Palestinians, the massacres of Sabra and Shatila and Deir Yassin, the Nakba in 1948, the Naksa in 1967… how many genocides they’ve committed during these 75 years. If you look throughout history, you can see that erasing us was the plan from the beginning. 

Hope is not for tomorrow

When settlers attack, it will be us, the victims of such an attack, who will be arrested by the police – and held under administrative detention for anywhere from weeks to months. Even after a large bail sum is paid, and release authorised, it has become the police’s practice to keep these cases open, enabling them to arrest the same people over and over again. 

But no matter how many times they come after us, we continue to defend our land and our human rights. We Palestinian activists have been documenting our reality on camera and publishing it for decades. Because that is the tool that we have. We don’t have anything against this system of oppression except our cameras. 

When settlers attack my home, they call out to me, “turn the camera off, forget what you can do with your camera, let us fight and see if you’re strong or not.” Maybe it’s crazy, but that moment is very powerful for me – the moment when I understand that they’re afraid of the camera, and the truth that it tells.

Now, because of the genocide in Gaza, many people see the truth. They understand how the Palestinians live, and how they die. Young people around the world understand about the occupation now and there is a chance that change will come. The people could change everything.

Our film, No Other Land, has changed people’s minds. As my co-director Basel Adara explains in one scene, you have to be patient. Our Oscar nomination will not end the occupation, our articles will not end the occupation. But at the end of the day, the pen, the camera, and the truth of our experience will always be more powerful than the sword. You have to be focused and have hope, and maybe it is a very dark hope, maybe at any moment they will finish you, but you must focus on the promise of things changing. You cannot be discouraged just because things don’t change immediately. If you continue, if you persist, you will succeed and something will change. We will change the situation. Yes we will lose many things, maybe our lives, but we must continue. 

This fight has been going on for generations. I inherited it from my father, and my hope is that my son will inherit it from me. That’s what I hope. This is the way to get your freedom. If you look at Ireland or India or Syria, you see how many generations it may take to get one’s freedom, but they never gave up. Hope is not for tomorrow. You have to understand it might come after 100 years. 

We are steadfast. The settlers work quickly, jumping three steps in a couple of years, and stealing thousands of dunams of our land in the blink of an eye. But we work step by step, slowly and surely. We have known for a very long time how to preserve our strength. You can hear our resilience any time you ask us about our experience: the first thing we say is Alhamdulillah. Praise be to God. Change will come.

Another curve of the circle

We say Alhamdulillah even as we face the horror of the occupation forces, watching our homes and all the memories they hold be demolished before our eyes. The demolitions are what complete the circle of oppression. They are Israel’s final, most brazen tactic in the attempt to steal our land. Every village in Masafer Yatta has demolition orders. The Palestinians try to fight against it but the “law” is against them. 

For example, it used to be that the occupation forces would notify two weeks in advance those families whose homes had been slated for demolition. This window occasionally allowed Palestinians the time to collect their papers proving ownership of the land, giving them the chance to freeze the order in court. In 2018, this window was reduced to 96 hours. Now, we have hardly a chance left in the world.

The last big demolition in the region took place on 10 February. Countless soldiers and military vehicles came to Khalet al-Dabaa, accompanied by three bulldozers. They demolished seven structures in Khalet al-Dabaa, three houses in Jinba, as well as shelters used by farmers in Marayer al-Abid. More than 74 people were left homeless in the middle of the winter, exposed to the cold, freezing rain. 

I have witnessed countless demolitions in Masafer Yatta, but I have never seen such a heavy presence of police and soldiers. I saw them throw people’s belongings on the ground, clearing the homes to be demolished, and I observed the families and children watching the bulldozers destroying everything they know. They stood and stared at the destruction, and they were so angry, but I saw no tears. 

It comes from the land

What I saw was a certain power in the eyes of these children. They inherit this strength from their parents; they are scared of the soldiers, of losing everything, of freezing to death in the winter. But they know inside that they will rebuild. 

Where does this hope come from? It comes from the land. We grew up on this land, we understand that our life is dependent on the land. It is because of this that we have Sumud. It’s not just any word; it means that you stay on your land no matter what. There is a saying among the older people in the area, whose houses were demolished by the occupation forces long ago: “the ground is my bed and the sky is my cover.” They might have lost their physical houses, but they are still at home in the land. 

When I was as young as the children of Khalet al-Dabaa, and enduring the moment that they are now enduring, I told myself that I couldn’t live this life. I finished high school and went to college for two years away from my village, only coming back for short visits. And I missed it. I missed the sound of the rain on the tent, which is like music for me. I started to think about my life without Susiya and I knew, that’s no life. 

After those two years, I came back to my home. My father would ask why I was in the fields and not in the college, and I told him that it is because I am a shepherd, a farmer, a worker of the land. I didn’t choose to be born in Susiya or in Palestine, but I was. When I left Susiya, my soul left my body. When I came back, my soul returned to me. The warmth of my family, the feeling of drinking tea in the fields with them and my neighbours, my land, my life, it all returned to me. And it is not possible for me to change myself. This place is a part of me.▼ 

Hamdan Ballal Al-Huraini is a farmer, photographer, and human rights activist from Susiya in the West Bank.