Khirbet Susya (, ) is a Palestinian village in the West Bank. Palestinian villagers reported as living in caves and nearby tents are considered as belonging to a unique southern Hebron cave-dwelling culture present in the area since the early 19th century.Oren Yiftachel, Neve Gordon, 'The Lurking Shadow of Expulsion,' 15 May 2002.Nir Hasson,'Should 250 Cave Dwellers Interfere With the Fence? ,' Haaretz 13 September 2004. The village had a population of 199 residents in 2017.
In 1982, an Israeli land authority, Plia Albeck, working in the Civil division of the State Attorney's Office, determined that the 300 hectares were Palestinians had been living, and which included an area with remains both of a 5th–8th century CE synagogue and of a mosque that had replaced it, were privately owned by the Palestinian Susya villagers.A Chronicle of Dispossession: Facts about Susiya, B'tselem 29 July 2015 In 1983, an Israeli settlement also named Susya was established next to the Palestinian village. In 1986, the Israeli Defense Ministry's Civil Administration declared the entire area owned by Palestinians an archeological site, and the Israeli Defense Forces expelled the Palestinian owners from their dwellings and appointed Israeli settlers from the recently built settlement to manage the site.Magness (2003), p. 99–104 Some of the expropriated Palestinian land was incorporated into the jurisdictional area of the Israeli settlement, and an illegal Israeli outpost was established on the area of the previous Palestinian village.
Many displaced families established homes a few hundred metres away, creating what is known as New Susya. Oral histories collected from former residents describe Old Susya as characterized by cave dwellings, rainfed agriculture, grape cultivation and traditional foodways, including the production of grape syrup (dibs).Ibid. Today, New Susya continues to face threats of demolition due to its location in Area C of the West Bank under full Israeli control.Harrowell, Elly, and Patricia Sellick. "Contested heritage in Susya: Asymmetry and possibilities for peace." Cooperation and Conflict 59, no. 4 (2023). doi:10.1177/00108367231205007.Stefano Pasta, "Cisgiordania, Susiya: i pastori palestinesi che tutte le mattine temono l'arrivo dei bulldozer", La Repubblica 10 June 2015: "Espropriati nel 1986, sotto sgombero dal 5 maggio. Fino a quell'anno i palestinesi abitavano nelle grotte a mezzo chilometro di distanza. Ne furono espropriati quando l'area fu riconosciuta sito archeologico. Andarono quindi a vivere nei terreni agricoli limitrofi di Susiya, di loro proprietà ma senza il permesso per costruire."[Translation please] After the killing of Yair Har-Sinai from the nearby Israeli settlement, in 2001, the Palestinian village was demolished for the second time.
Having since been rebuilt, there are currently new demolition orders standing for the structures of the Palestinian village.
The population of the Palestinian community reportedly numbered 350 in 2012 and 250 residents the following year,'Khirbet Susiya,' B'tselem 1 Jan 2013. which constituted by 50 nuclear families (2015), up from 25 in 1986 and 13 in 2008.
Origins and background Khirbet Susya, called Susya al-Qadima ('Old Susya'),David Shulman, ‘'I Am an Illegal Alien on My Own Land,’ at The New York Review of Books, June 28, 2012. is a village attached to the archaeological site of Susya. 'Susya: A History of Loss,' Rabbis for Human Rights 7 November 2013.Yaacov Hasdai,Truth in the Shadow of War, Zmora, Bitan, Modan, 1979 p.70:'Shmarya Gutman, the archaeologist, told them of the magnificent remains of the ancient synagogue at the village of Susiya in the Hebron Hills'.
In the early 19th century, many residents of the two big villages in the area of South Mount Hebron, Yatta and Dura, started to immigrate to ruins and caves in the area and became 'satellite villages' (daughters) to the mother town. Purported reasons for the expansion were lack of land for agriculture and construction in the mother towns, which resulted in high prices of land and rivalries between the mother-towns clans wishing to control more land and resources. Another reason may have been security, as the ‘satellite villages’ would have served a security buffer against gangs of robbers who would raid the mother villages. Caves are used by locals as residences, storage space and sheepfold. The affiliation between the satellite villages and mother town remained. While some of the satellites became permanent villages with communities of 100s, others remained temporary settlements which served shepherds and fallāḥīn (farmers) for several months every year.Havakook p.25-31 In 1981-2 it was estimated 100-120 families dwelt in caves permanently in the South Mount Hebron region while 750-850 families lived there temporarily.Havakook p.65
Yaakov Havakook, who lived with the locals in the region for several years, writes that the community at Khirbet Susya was seasonal and didn't live in the caves year-round. Families of shepherds arrived after the first rain (October–November), stayed during the grazing season and left in late April or early May. and the alike will discover, that every year, during grazing time, families of shepherds visit the caves in these ruins, with every shepherd family returning to and living in the same cave in which that family lived in the prior season. At the end of the rainy season, the shepherds abandon the caves which they used during the grazing months, and return to their village, or may visit other grazing areas. They were known for a special kind of cheese produced in their caves,Ephraim Stern, Ayelet Leṿinzon-Gilboʻa, Joseph Aviram, [The New encyclopedia of archaeological excavations in the Holy Land], Vol.4, Israel Exploration Society & Carta, 1993 p1415:'a special kind of cheese that, until recently, was processed in the caves of Khirbet Susiya.' and lived by harvesting olives, herding sheep, growing crops, and beekeeping.Ylenia Gostoli, 'Archaeology of a dispossession,' Qantara.de 27 April 2015.
According to Rabbi for Human Rights, in 1948, the preexisting population was augmented by an influx of Palestinian refugees who had fled during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War from the area of Ramat Arad, who subsequently purchased land in the area.'The origin of the expulsion – A Brief history of Palestinian Susya,' Rabbis for Human Rights 25 June 2012 After coming under Israeli civil authority in 1982, an Israel settlement planner, Plia Albeck, examined the area of Susiya, the synagogue and the Palestinian village built on and around it, and finding it legally difficult to advance Jewish settlement, wrote: “The [ancient] synagogue is located in an area that is known as the lands of Khirbet Susya, and around an Arab village between the ancient ruins. There is a formal registration on the land of Khirbet Susya with the Land Registry, according to which this land, amounting to approximately 3000 dunam [approximately 741 acres], is privately held by many Arab owners. Therefore the area proximal to the [ancient] synagogue is in all regards privately owned.”'The “Mother of the Settlements” recognizes Susya,'Rabbis for Human Rights 25 May 2015.
In June 1986, Israel expropriated the Palestinian village's residential ground for an archeological site, evicting about 25 families. The expelled Susyans settled in caves and tin shacks nearby, on their agricultural lands at a site now called Rujum al-Hamri,Yuval Baruch, Horbat Susya and Rujum el-Hajiri as a Case Study for the Development of the Village and the Rural Settlement in the Hebron Hills from the Early Roman Period to the Early Muslim Period,(Phd Dissertation) Hebrew University 2009, cited in Stuart S. Miller, At the Intersection of Texts and Material Finds: Stepped Pools, Stone Vessels, and Ritual Purity Among the Jews of Roman Galilee, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015 p.20 n.9 to restart their lives.Ta'ayush, 'Aggressive Zionist body wins court order to demolish Palestinian village,', at Jews for Justice for Palestinians, 14 June 2012.
The Israeli government official stance on the matter says: “There was no historic Palestinian village at the archaeological site there; that the village consists of only a few seasonal residences for a few families; and the land is necessary for the continuation of archaeological work.”Chaim Levinson,'Israel seeks to demolish Palestinian village on ‘archaeological’ grounds ,' Haaretz 28 March 2015. According to Regavim, an NGO which petitioned the Supreme Court to execute the demolition orders at Khirbet susya, the place was used as grazing area and olive agricalture seasonally before 1986. In a report, Regavim writes that travelers from the late 19th century report finding ruins (while nearby Semua was reported as inhabited).Tristram, 1865, p. 387 The British census from 1945 does not mention Susya1945 census and, according to Regavim, a survey from 1967, done after Six-Day War, refers to Khirbat Susya as ruins in contrast to nearby villages such as At-Tuwani, Yatta.
Land ownership and master plan A master plan was not approved and building permit were not given to Khirbet Susya because there was no sufficient proof of ownership as the documents lack geographic information and based on them, it was "not possible to make unambiguous claims of ownership over the land in question". The Jabor family supports a claim to land near Susya with Ottoman documents dated back to 1881 and the Nawaja family, who is originally from the Tel Arad area and moved to Susya in 1952, has documents as well. Their documents are problematic since the boundaries mentioned were described in terms of geography features which are hard to identify in the field.
In July 2015 it was published that according to an internal document of findings by the Israeli Civil Administration officer Moshe Meiri, the claim to ownership of the land appears to be grounded on a valid Ottoman period title, dating back to 1881, in the possession of the Jabor family. This document appears to have been known to Israeli officials since the advent of civil administration in 1982. Though the precise extent of their land was not specified in the document, in an internal review of the case in 2015, Meiri established from the geographical features mentioned that the land covered territory now belonging to the Jabor and Nawaja families, and the villages on the basis of their Ottoman period documents claim an area that covers some 3,000 dunams (741 acres).Barak Ravid, Chaim Levinson, ‘Defense Ministry internal report: Land at village slated for demolition privately owned by Palestinians,’ Haaretz 26 July 2015.'In light of new internal review, Israeli military administration to reevaluate demolishing West Bank village, report says,’ The Times of Israel 26 July 2015. In early 1986, Before the first Israeli expulsion, the village was visited by U.S. consular officials, who recorded the occasion in photographs.Mairav Zonszein, 'IDF maps village of Susya as forced displacement looms,' +972 magazine 10 May 2015.
Additional expulsions