Ethnic cleansing and land theft in Khirbet Zanuta

Khirbet Zanuta, a community in the southern West Bank, was displaced on November 1, 2023, due to settler attacks. Over 140 people, including the S. and N. families, fled the area.

Chronology of Events:

End of 2023

October 7, 2023: Settlers began intensifying attacks after this date.

Settlers entered houses, cursed and threatened children. They threw stones at homes, preventing families from sleeping for 10 days. Settlers bulldozed and blocked the main road into Khirbet Zanuta.

Settler Attacks on the Saleh S.’s family

October 31, 2023: Six armed settlers attacked Saleh S.’s brother, Mahmoud. Mahmoud was detained, beaten, and choked by settlers. Mahmoud and Saleh recognized the leader of the settlers, who had been cutting water pipes and harassing the community with drones.

November 1, 2023: The entire extended family fled after settlers threw rocks at them while they were leaving. The family rented trucks for 3,200 shekels (around $860) to move 300 sheep and left behind most of their belongings. They built new rooms near al-Dhahiriya but struggled financially without access to their lands.

Post-displacement: The family paid 60,000 shekels (around $16,000) to build a new sheep shelter, but could not maintain the flock due to lack of access to water and land.

Settler Attacks on the N. Family:

Munir and Sara N., both 38, and their nine children also faced multiple attacks.

Early October: Settlers, accompanied by soldiers, assaulted neighbors and destroyed property. A stun grenade was thrown inside the N. family’s home, terrifying their children. Settlers threatened the family, giving them 24 hours to leave or face being set on fire. The family rented trucks for 2,100 shekels (about $560) to move livestock. Repeated drone attacks by settlers caused sheep to panic, resulting in the death of 10 sheep.

Munir’s family fell into debt and expressed a desire to return home if safety could be guaranteed.

School Destruction:

October 7, 2023: Schools in Khirbet Zanuta shifted to online learning, but families lacked internet devices.

November 20-21, 2023: The local school, built with EU and UK support, was burned in an apparent arson attack and later bulldozed. The kindergarten, subsidized and affordable, was destroyed, leaving children like 4-year-old Nadia without access to early education. Education Losses:

The destroyed school had 27 students from kindergarten to 6th grade. Civil society groups had partnered with the school for psycho-social support and health programs, which were lost after the school’s destruction.

2024 events

On January 31, 2024,

Settlers came and fenced the area of the village in order to take over the land and prevent residents from returning. Some of the settlers were from the Meitarim Farm of Yinon Levy. Many of the settlers who fenced off Khirbet Zanuta are wearing branded sweatshirts of Hashomer Yosh, an organization known for providing assistance to many violent outposts.

On April 17, 2024:

The human rights organization, Haqel: In Defense of Human Right, petitioned the Israeli High Court to instruct the army to protect five Palestinian communities from displacement threats and allow displaced families from Khirbet Zanuta to return, where the Israeli state attorney, in a February 20 response, claimed that no forced displacement had occurred in Khirbet Zanuta.

On March 1 : provocation and fabicated incident

A fabricated Car-Ramming Incident in Zanuta highlights a staged provocation by settlers to delegitimize activists documenting illegal outpost construction.

• Activists arrived to document settlers establishing an outpost on Zanuta’s land, from which residents had been expelled twice before. Settler Ilai Federman staged a fake car-ramming incident, dramatically lying on the ground and falsely claiming he was hit.

• Settlers and Soldiers Escalate Tensions – Despite obvious inconsistencies in Federman’s claims, settlers and soldiers arrived, declaring it an attack. Meanwhile, settlers used the chaos to expand their presence, intimidate activists, and push them off the land.

• Repeated Tactics of Misinformation – Federman has a history of staging similar incidents to falsely accuse activists. The detained driver was released after questioning, proving authorities did not believe the accusations. The real purpose of such staged incidents is to generate misleading headlines that support settler expansion and discredit human rights activists, aiding the broader goal of displacing Palestinian communities.

[Source https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/17/west-bank-israel-responsible-rising-settler-violence]

On Augustus 24, 2024, Yinon Levi and Ely Federman, from the Meitarim Farm, both under sanctions, came together with other settlers to harass residents of Zanuta who returned to their village previous Wednesday.