In the South Hebron Hills of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, an area known as Masafer Yatta, there are 32 small Palestinian villages, farmer and Bedouin communities living on agriculture and herding. The Israeli state and settlers seek to expel them from this land. To support the local communities to stay on their land, a number of actors (Palestinian, Israeli and international) have sought to protect the civilian population from the escalating acts of violence by the state and settlers in which their lives, homes, crops and livestock have been targeted.
The settlers act with complete impunity, confident they will face no legal sanctions for their acts of violence, and they serve as a tool of the Israeli state in its pursuance of its annexationist policies of the Palestinian land. In the words of a report by the Israeli human rights agency B’tselem, ‘settler violence is a form of government policy, aided and abetted by official state authorities with their active participation.’
In this context, UCP is significant as a mode of enhancing the security and protection of the Palestinians in Masafer Yatta and to create safer spaces within which they can continue to maintain their livelihoods, hold on to their land and way of life. This research project examined the different forms of community self-protection measures and the role of others in creating safer space for the Palestinians, as well as the challenges faced by the local community and external actors in providing civil protection in violent conflict.
PROJECT TEAM
Dr Marwan Darweish is the principal investigator (PI) of the project, with overall responsibility for the management, planning and delivery of the project.
Marwan Darweish has an unparalleled research background in the OPT and Israel. He has conducted many research projects and consultancies with Palestinian and Israeli NGOs and EU about conflict transformation and nonviolent resistance. As a Palestinian with Israeli and British citizenship his political involvements and his fluency in Arabic, Hebrew and English have enabled him to develop a close relationship with many Israeli solidarity and peace activists and with their Palestinian counterparts – a trust relationship that makes his research in this conflict zone so rich and textured.
Dr Andrew Rigby is Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies with the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR), of which he was the founding director.
He began researching and writing about unarmed civilian resistance in the OPT in the 1980s, and has continued his involvement over the ensuing four decades as a researcher, consultant and advocate of unarmed resistance to occupation.
Over the years he has developed a wide network of contacts amongst Israelis, Palestinians and representatives of international humanitarian aid and human rights agencies. He will draw on these contacts throughout the period of the proposed research project.
Dr Mahmoud Soliman is a Research Fellow at the CTPSR, based in the West Bank and closely associated with the Al-Shmoh Cultural Center, a small NGO in the OPT. Mahmoud is a highly regarded activist, community organiser and researcher. He will be ‘in the field’ for the majority of the research project, liaising with key informants, organising the field visits and taking a leading role in the dissemination of the findings of the research the follow up in-country activities. He will be the main contact with a Local Advisory Group (LAG) which will be established as part of the research process.
RESEARCH OUTPUTS
Short Film: Civil Protection to stay on our land
Produced by local film makers, this film documents the experience of Palestinian farmers and shepherds with civil protection in the South Hebron Hills (Masafer Yatta). It explores the efficacy of unarmed civilian protection and how to strengthen self-protection against the threats of expulsion and dispossession by Israel and the settlers.
Articles in Rethinking Security
- ‘Frontier Genocide: The West Bank a year after the ICJ ruling on Gaza’ (January 2025)
- ‘Settlers turn Soldiers: The imperative for international presence and protection in the West Bank’ (November 2023)
- ‘Weaponising Sheep: Israeli settler colonialism in the South Hebron Hills’ (July 2023)
RESEARCH SUMMARY
We conducted two field visits to Masafer Yatta in October 2022 and June 2023. We interviewed local community leaders and activists, in addition to members of international groups engaged in different forms of ‘accompaniment’ and civil protection. We interviewed about 30 people, accompanied shepherds and farmers, and witnessed the UCP activities by Palestinian, Israeli, and international organisations.
The research highlighted that in such an asymmetric struggle the local inhabitants have few resources of resistance beyond their own everyday courage, tenacity and steadfastness – sumud. To support them, different organisations and groups have sought to offer various forms of accompaniment as means of civilian protection, assisting the Palestinians in their efforts to achieve a degree of ‘safe space’ within which to pursue their lives.
The research highlighted that community self-protection measures are a first line of defence. There is a culture characterised by an emphasis on the importance of family and family networks, mutual aid, faza’a (traditional collective effort), significance of personal and family honour and avoidance of shame. Community-based protection methods in response to threats from the outside, especially settlers, include: recognition of strength in numbers, importance of look-outs, coordination, mutual support and local knowledge. Our conclusion is that all these actions by locals will not end the occupation; it will enhance local resilience to stay on the land and frustrate the Israeli occupation, but it will not guarantee that they will not be expelled from their land.
There is a symbiotic relationship between local Palestinians and international accompaniers. The
accompaniers are there to enhance the security of the Palestinians, but the Palestinians in turn ‘protect’ the internationals – advising them of potential threats, identifying escape routes in case of attack, and indicating where they should stand in order to minimise the risk of injury during encounters with settlers.
We learned how the presence of Palestinian and Israeli solidarity activists, alongside internationals from networks such as the International Solidarity Movement, the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, Operation Dove from Italy and the US-based Centre for Jewish Nonviolence, played a significant role in enabling locals to continue to graze their sheep. The accompaniers acted as a kind of protective presence, deterring Israeli settlers from attacking the villagers through their monitoring and documentation of human rights abuses.
Most significantly, their presence had a profound impact on the morale and hence the resilience of the locals, who saw the accompaniers as evidence that they were not alone in their struggle.
