On 9 June 2021, while Musleh Makhamreh (24) was out grazing his flock a few hundred meters west of the community, several settlers arrived with a military escort and ordered him to leave. Makhamreh refused and called the police, but the officers who came to the scene arrested him on the grounds that he had threatened to kill the settlers. He asked the officers to watch footage he had filmed on his phone during the incident. They refused to do so or to allow him to call his father so he could gather the flock, which was left alone in the field.
Makhamreh was taken to the Kiryat Arba police station, interrogated, and then transferred to Ofer Prison. That evening, at around 7:00 P.M., his father arrived at the station to file a complaint against the settlers who had harassed his son, but the officers refused to register the complaint. After waiting until 10:00 P.M, he had no choice but to return home.
In a court hearing the next day, the judge accepted the police’s claim that they were not done investigating Makhamreh and extended his detention, although the officers admitted they had not watched the footage filmed by Makhamreh, which proves his innocence. Makhamreh was released on 13 June 2021 after an Israeli activist signed his NIS 20,000 bail and after he undertook to appear for further proceedings if summoned.
About two weeks earlier, settlers stoned another shepherd from the community. The settlement outpost of Havat Ma’on was established about 1.5 kilometers from the site of the attack.