Yatta’s Shanty Towns.. How Palestinian Bedouins Defied Israeli Settlers

Yatta, West Bank, 23 Muharram 1438/24 October 2016 (MINA) – In an act to defy Israeli settlers’ attempts to sallow more Palestinian lands, the Bedouin populace of the town of Yatta, south of the West Bank, started to dwelled in shanty towns they made on the ruins of their old houses.

Some 230 people started to live in the towns which lacked basic facilities to protect against the heat of the summer and the harsh cold of the winter.

However, all these aspects did not deter Yatta’s Bedouins from defying the Israeli settlers who tried to drive them out of Yatta via destroying their original houses.

“They (Israelis) tore down my one-room house twice and refuse to allow me to rebuild it,” Khadra Al-Hathaleen, one of the dwellers, told KUNA while standing in front of her tent.

The settlement of Carmel, which is not far away from the dwellings in Yatta is continuously attacking the shanty town, she said.

Relative Suleiman Al-Hathaleen had a similar account, telling KUNA that during the 1980s the Israelis drove them out of their house in Carmel and started to construct their settlement over the lands they originally owned in 1964.

“We refuse to leave,” said Al-Hathaleen definitely, stressing that he will stay on the land no matter what the cost.

Speaking on the matter, head of Yatta municipality Ibrahim Al-Harni said that they were 17 shanty town gatherings the around the area, indicating that the Bedouins not only lived in tents, they also choose to live in nearby caves.

He affirmed that these people were suffering from the aggression carried out by the Jewish settlers.

The shanty towns in Yatta are not the only ones in the Palestinian occupied territories, there are many similar gatherings throughout the West Bank which Israel usually, and unlawfully, describes as “illegal”.

Despite all the odds, most of the Palestine populace of such areas rather die than leaving the places they decided to dwell, preferring to defy the unjust Israeli policies and to stick to their grounds. (T/R07/R01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)