RESTRICTION SUMMARY: Hebron- 05 December 2022. Palestinian woman Fatima Al-Nawaja, displays the homemade products inside an archaeological cave in Khirbet Susiya, south of the West Bank city of Hebron.

0.1 SOUNDBITE (in Arabic) Fatma al-Nawajaa

STORYLINE:

A Byzantine-era archaeological cave in Khirbet Susiya, south of the West Bank city of Hebron, has become an iconic place reflecting the Palestinian struggle against Israeli demolition threats.

Fatma al-Nawajaa, a local resident of Susiya village, in a bid to protect the archaeological cave and keep our humanitarian issue alive, I came up with an idea to restore the cave and turn it into a workshop to exhibit our homemade traditional products."

Embroideries, artistic handicrafts, traditional food made from goat's milk, and cheese, as well as clothes made of sheep's wool are among the products displayed in the cave dubbed "Susiya Exhibition for Palestinian handicrafts and embroideries."

Masafer Yatta is the only Palestinian territory where many caves are used as homes – some 200 of the 800 caves in this area are still inhabited.

In 1980, Israel ruled that a large section of Masafer Yatta including 12 villages was, in fact, uninhabited. It designated the land Firing Zone 918 – an area for its military to practise with live ammunition. The residents of these villages remained until 1999, when the military attempted to evict more than 700 Palestinians on the grounds that they were “illegally living in a firing zone”. These families have been fighting a legal battle for their communities’ right to remain ever since, which was finally rejected by Israel’s Supreme Court in May 2022.

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