Demolitions

Mourning is Foreclosed: Umm al-Khair, November 1, 2025. Text and photographs: Margaret Olin

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*NB: Please read to the end. Or skip the rest and go directly to the end.

Hanady’s sitting room is a shrine to her late husband, 31-year-old Awdah Hathaleen, killed in cold blood in July by a settler who was punished with three days of house arrest. With only a small diamond-shaped design of sequins to break the unrelenting darkness of her black draped clothing, Hanady tells me that everything is gone for her: everything left with Awdah: her home life, her future, her dreams, the list goes on.

Note: While I cannot photograph the faces of the Bedouin women of Umm al-Khair, I am encouraged to photograph the children.

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July 9, 2025         Aliya

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I used to be afraid to cross the road and look at my house like a stranger.
Today, what I feared has happened.
Today, we are strangers — as if the house was never ours, as if we never drank tea there, as if we never played there.
We are strangers.
When you pass by, ask the house: Where are your residents? Where is your family? Where are your loved ones?
Our names are still there on the wall — all the names of my family.
I can never forget Ma’arajat. Every time I pass through that road, I will cry for it.
Life ended after Ma’arajat. —- Aliya

WhatsApp message. Courtesy of Aliya. Identity slightly altered.
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May 27, 2023.   ‘Ein Samiya. Text and Photographs, David Shulman

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‘Ein Samiya seen from above in July, 2020. Photograph: Jacob Magid

The village of ‘Ein Samiya is no more.

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The Destruction of Masafer Yatta, June 7, 2022

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Fakheit, Masafer Yatta, South Hebron Hills, Occupied Palestine, June, 2022.

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The laundry gets to me, its bright colors neatly arranged by size. French theorist Roland Barthes might have called it a “punctum.” That’s the heart-stopping detail in a photograph whose personal connection pierces you and holds you. And who doesn’t relate to laundry? But the “punctum” is not limited to photographs. To walk through these ruined households is to feel the same combination of dismay and recognition over and over again.

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A-Rakiz, February 23, 2021. Text: David Shulman; photographs: Guy Butavia, others

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photograph: Guy Butavia

A-Rakiz is perched on the sharp spine of a rocky ridge in the South Hebron hills. It would be a charming, if rugged, place to live were it not for the ruins of its houses scattered over the village lands and for the two illegal settlements of Avigail and Chavat Maon on either side. A-Rakiz has a history of house demolitions going back some years. On November 25, 2020, the army destroyed another five houses there, including that of Harun’s parents, Rasmi and Farsi, and the one Rasmi built for Harun and his bride-to-be. Since then the family has been living in one of the caves still more or less intact in the village. It’s cold in the cave during these winter months. I know, I sat there with the parents for some hours last week.

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February 6, 2021. The Hague, text: David Shulman, photographs: Margaret Olin

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Firing Zone Marker outside of Jinba, South Hebron Hills, 2017.

Sometimes, possibly more often than we think, there is also good news.

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November 6, 2020. Harat Makhul. Humsa al-Foqa. Text by David Shulman

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photograph: David Shulman, 2020

 The rains have come in force, the hills are muddy, and there is food for the goats and sheep. Over morning tea in Makhul we get the weekly litany of hurts. Walid—still a boy—was out alone with the herd, and settlers came and beat him. It’s really dangerous to be alone on the hills. A large posse of settlers attacked Qadri and several others; there were two broken legs.  A few days earlier, settlers killed Qadri’s uncle’s cow.

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December 14, 2019. Magha’ir al-‘Abid. Text and (nearly all) photographs by David Shulman

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  In Memoriam: Neville Symington

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It’s a tiny dot deep in the desert, hidden in a wild sweep of hills and rock and narrow goat-tracks, brown-beige-gold. It’s the end of the world. A rough road takes you there. There’s a bigger village, Isfay, on the ridge above it; they have a health clinic and a wind turbine. Magha’ir al-‘Abid, “Caves of the Slaves,” has a few dozen souls, most of whom live in caves. Each of the caves has a carved stone façade, and inside they’re well appointed, clean, warm on this sunny mid-winter day. Outside you hear wind rippling over sand and the gentle bleating of goats and sheep.

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October 7, 2018: al-Khan al-Ahmar. Post by David Shulman

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IMG-20181007-WA0011

Photograph: David Shulman

Al-Khan al-Ahmar:  still waiting. Now that Angela Merkel has come and gone, and the holiday season is over, and the court has spoken, there are no further obstacles to the coming devastation. Germany joined other EU countries in condemning the planned demolition as a war crime, and Merkel herself is clearly against it; the government politely delayed execution until after she left Israel. We had hoped she might issue a strong statement while here: hope, or desperation, conjures up hopeless dreams. Continue reading →

July 5, 2018: Susya. Post by David Shulman. Photos: Margaret Olin and others

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Susiya, 2016. Photograph: Margaret Olin

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            So there is the Big Destruction, the one everyone in Susya and in al-Khan al-Ahmar knows will happen, the one everyone fears, and there are the Little Destructions along the way, the tremors that presage what is to come, as if the army were testing the water. ‘Azzam Nawajeh, whose home is on the demolition list, says he wishes they would do the big one already; waiting day after day, for many months, in the certainty that they will come, is torture enough. This morning we thought it was happening, but in the end what we saw were two Little Destructions. They were awful. Continue reading →