Goodbye Qawawis

( all photos by my friend David Parsons. Thankyou David. )

During Ramadan 2005, I stayed for a short time, just three days and nights, along with two friends, David from Canada and Maraya from the USA, in the rolling south Hebron hills in the occupied West Bank, in a tiny Palestinian settlement called Qawawis. Settlement is a loaded word to use in the context of this land, like so many other words ('wall', 'terrorist', 'refugee camp') it is drenched in subjective meaning - but there is not another good word for this place that I stayed. It is smaller than a village, and not really a farm. Qawawis was a collection of about seven stone huts built low to the ground, it had some pens for goats and sheep, it had some olive trees, a couple of stone bake ovens, a well, and a population of about 40 people, from four or five families. These people are shepherds and olive farmers, they rise early, graze their gaunt stock in the surrounding hills, bake bread, make olive oil, pray, talk, laugh, play soccer. They had electricity for only one hour each evening, from a generator.

David, Maraya and I were in Qawawis for these three nights because we were acting as international activists aiming to lessen the threat of harassment of the Palestinians who lived there. Qawawis was situated near to a smooth bitumen Israeli road, like the many which slice through the West Bank, connecting army posts and illegal Israeli settlements with Israel itself. On the horizon on three sides such Israeli settlements were perched high on hilltops, overlooking the huts of Qawawis - these settlements were all built since 1982, and are home to Jewish communities of the more fundamentalist persuation. Frequently the Israeli settlers or soldiers would make visits to Qawawis, or stop on the roadside, often with weapons, in order to harass, abuse, threaten and sometimes attack them. Shortly before I was in Qawawis a makeshift bomb was found, planted by settlers in a stone wall - if a rock above the device was removed the bomb would be detonated. The log book in our hut documented countless cases of the villagers being hit with rocks and sticks, of cars driving loudly towards the village honking horns to scare the animals, of settlers suddenly walking around, and into the huts, unannounced, and occasionally accompanied by soldiers. Caves attached to the houses and often containing ovens or storage areas have been cemented over, animal feed and olive trees poisoned. Soldiers at one stage declared the area a "closed military zone" and began to arrest any Palestinians found in the area.

In March 2005 the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the military had to respect the rights of the people of Qawawis and similar villages in the surrounding area to live in their ancestral land. The people of Qawawis returned and rebuilt their homes, requesting permanent assistance from International Human Rights observers to help them retain their homes. Harassment, on an almost daily basis, continued.


This photo is of Hadj Khalil, one of the patriarchs of Qawawis. In this photo he is sitting on a platform on which he prayed each day, and looking towards the watchtowers of a nearby Israel settlement.

Hadj Khalil, along with all the other people of Qawawis, were welcoming and warm with us during our stay. Despite the fact that they were fasting for Ramadan, they frequently bought us mint tea and olive oil and za'atar and warm fresh loaves straight from the ovens in the caves. They sat with us and spoke in patient Arabic, as we asked countless questions they had been asked again and again by other internationals. The three of us had an incredible time here with these people, we were made to feel at home in our little stone hut, and together we learnt so much, in so short a time. I will never ever forget the people of Qawawis, or the short time I was there.


A few days ago, Qawawis, along with a number of similar Palestinian villages and settlements in the Hebron hills area, was destroyed by Israeli military. My heart is sunk. Please read the below press-release, sent to me by my friend Sarah, and today, keep in your mind these few innocent, peaceful, beautiful and now homeless families, and the countless others like them, throughout Palestine and the Middle East.

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Seven Palestinian Homes Demolished
Independent Catholic News
Saturday, February 17, 2007

Israeli soldiers demolished homes in three Palestinian villages near bypass road 317 on 14 February, the Christian Peacemaker Team reports. Starting in Imneizil at around 9am about forty Israeli soldiers with two bulldozers demolished one home, an animal pen and a stone bake-oven. At noon the soldiers moved to Qawawis where they demolished the homes of five families and one bake-oven, then on to Um Al-Kher where they demolished one home and damaged a wall of another home.

At Imneizil several young children were in their home eating when the Israeli military arrived; the soldiers gave the family time to get out, but did not give them time to remove their personal belongings. The animal pen was demolished with a few animals inside; two lambs were injured. The Palestinian family began immediately to build a makeshift pen for the animals as the majority of the sheep were just returning from grazing in the fields.

In the village of Qawawis one of the demolished homes was over sixty-five years old, and sheltered two families.

The Israeli military, in concert with Israeli settlers, has been trying to force the Palestinian residents of the south Hebron hills to leave their homes for years. Due to harassment from the nearby Israeli outposts several of the young families of Qawawis moved to a nearby town; when the Israeli army then forcibly evacuated the remaining families, a court ordered that the families could return to their homes. According to a lawyer representing the families, the Israeli army now claims that this court ruling allows only the last inhabitants of Qawawis to return, not their children who earlier fled the assaults of the Israeli settlers.

"Our children need homes," said one villager. "What do they want us to do?"

The Israeli army said: "Twenty illegal structures were destroyed after demolition orders were issued, and offers were made to the owners to pursue the available options before the planning organizations. The supervisory unit of the civil administration will continue to operate against illegal building activity in the area, and to implement the steps mandated by law against this illegal activity." The Israeli military made no provisions for shelter for the families whose homes they demolished. The families asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide them with tents.

The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions said: "A building permit is unavailable there [in the south Hebron hills]." The preceding day three Israeli peace activists and two internationals, including CPTer Sally Hunsberger, joined approximately fifty Palestinians in working on their land near Imneizil. The Palestinian men, women and children planted 600 olive trees in fields that they had been afraid to walk on for the past four years due to threats of settler violence. During the action, soldiers and settlers watched from a distance, but did not interfere with the tree planting.

Christian Peacemaker Teams is an ecumenical initiative to support violence reduction efforts around the world. To learn more about CPT's peacemaking work, please visit: the CPT website

© Independent Catholic News 2007