On July 12, the residents of the Palestinian village of Khirbet Susiya, located in the Mount Hebron area of the West Bank, had a meeting with Gen. Yoav (“Polly”) Mordechai, the commander of the Israeli military's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories unit. It was only then that they discovered that at the beginning of August, the Civil Administration, which administers civilian activity in the West Bank on behalf of the Israeli government, plans to demolish half of the structures in the village.

If this happens, the curtain will fall on the legal battle they have been waging against the state for more than 20 years, ever since they were expelled from the caves where they had previously lived and which were designated a national park. After their expulsion, they set up several temporary structures on farmland they cultivated while they were living in the caves. According to the state, these structures are illegal. Israel plans to relocate the residents of Khirbet Susiya to Area A in the environs of the village of Yatta. Khirbet Susiya is located in Area C. Under the 1993 Oslo Accord, Area C is under full Israeli control, while Area A is under full Palestinian civil and security control.

Some 350 people currently live in Khirbet Susiya, half of whom are under 18. Located nearby is the Jewish settlement of Susiya that was established in 1983. Some of the residents of the Palestinian village who used to live there had given up because of the harsh conditions and unending legal battles. Instead, they moved to the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

“One day, in 1986, we were notified that we had to leave our village and go somewhere else. We were never given the opportunity to protest and no alternative location was offered. I was a child back then and I remember the trauma,” Salah Nawajeh, a resident of Khirbet Susiya, told Al-Monitor. “We were given a couple of days. Then the military showed up, put up fences and we were barred from going in. This was our land, our life, our homes. We were told that that was an archaeological site and that from that moment on it would be run by the settlers. But we came [to the cave village] because we were banished from our first natural territory.”