AhlulBayt News Agency: On Wednesday, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) declared approximately 400 dunums of land in the Sarura area of Masafer Yatta, south of al-Khalil, a closed military zone following the seizure of a cave belonging to Palestinian resident Jamil al-Amour by an Israeli settler.
The decision came after local villagers and activists demanded the removal of settlers. Instead, the IOF expelled Palestinians and solidarity activists from the area, while allowing settlers to remain inside the cave.
Anti-settlement activist Osama Makhamra told Al-Araby al-Jadeed that Sarura is located between several villages and hamlets in Masafer Yatta, bordered by Khirbet al-Mufaqara to the west, Khillet al-Dab’a to the southeast, and al-Tuwani to the north. The illegal settlement of Havat Ma’on lies to the east and northeast.
Makhamra explained that the area has been effectively inaccessible to Palestinians since before October 7, 2023, due to repeated settler attacks and its proximity to the settlement. Despite the danger, local residents continue to visit daily to tend their farmland.
He added that settlers recently erected a tent atop a hill in Sarura and have remained there continuously, signaling an effort to entrench their presence and expand control over land belonging to the al-Amour family.
The area spans hundreds of dunums, with Khirbet al-Mufaqara being the nearest inhabited community to the west, where around 150 Palestinians live in nearly 20 caves.
Makhamra said that settler ambitions in Sarura are part of a broader plan to link the settlements of Ma’on and Avigal by seizing lands between them, including al-Rakiz, Khillet al-Dab’a, and Sarura.
In recent days, settlers have carried out similar attacks—uprooting grape and olive saplings, demolishing and stealing tents, and vandalizing vineyards and private property belonging to Palestinians such as Mahmoud Abu Tuhfa and Mohammed Ubeid. Activists describe this as an organized campaign to take over more land in Masafer Yatta.
Fouad al-Amour, coordinator of the Protection and Steadfastness Committees in Masafer Yatta, said the latest developments are part of a systematic Israeli strategy to forcibly displace Palestinians through “grazing settlement policies,” legal pretexts, and daily harassment by settlers backed by the IOF and Israeli police.
He described the settler’s takeover of al-Amour’s cave in Sarura as a “dangerous precedent,” noting that the settler prevented activists from filming the incident by falsely claiming they were “filming his wife.” Al-Amour said such tactics are part of a broader Israeli effort to fabricate legal justifications and obscure the colonial nature of these actions.
According to the Palestinian Government Media Office, settler violence in the occupied West Bank has surged since Israel began its genocide in Gaza on October 7, 2023. Settlers have carried out 7,154 attacks against Palestinians and their property, resulting in the deaths of 33 people to date.
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