Nov. 15, 2012 | Al-Monitor
As the conflict escalates in Gaza, a dispute rages over Susiya, a small Palestinian village and herding community in the Hebron hills of the West Bank.
SUSIYA, WEST BANK - In June 2012, Palestinian residents received more than 50 demolition orders from the Israeli Civil Administration, Israel’s governing body in the West Bank.
The Israeli human rights organization Rabbis for Human Rights appealed the order on behalf of the villagers. But if the demolitions are carried out, it will be the third time that the residents have been expelled and seen their homes destroyed.
Since the early 1980s Susiya residents and Jewish settlers have been locked in a legal battle over the land. Three years after Jewish settlers began inhabiting the land in 1983 — also calling their new settlement "Susiya" after an old Judean village — Israel declared the area an archaeological site and ordered the evacuation of the Palestinian village to make room for a national park.