On Tuesday, 2 January 2024, around 8:30 A.M., residents of Sadet a-Tha’lah went to their farmland to plow it, escorted by Solidarity activists. As soon as they arrived, soldiers they recognize as area settlers appeared. The soldiers arrested two of the residents and later released them, forbidding them to try and plow the land again. Meanwhile, other settlers were documented setting their flocks to graze on the residents’ private land, in the presence of the soldiers, Border Police officers and police officers who arrived later, all of whom did nothing.
After Border Police officers inquired with the DCO, the soldiers allowed the residents to plow in two areas. However, less than an hour later, after the Border Police officers left, soldiers that the residents recognize as settlers stopped the plowing, claiming they were waiting for further approval from the DCO. The soldiers blocked the residents from plowing for another three hours, but no officer arrived from the DCO. Finally, more soldiers arrived, presented the landowners with a closed military zone order, and forced them to leave. The settlers remained on the Palestinians' private land undisturbed.
Two days later, on Thursday, 4 January, the residents went again to plow their land, escorted by Solidarity activists. Twenty minutes after the work began, soldiers arrived, confiscated the tractor keys, informed the farmers that they were not allowed to plow without coordination, and declared the area a closed military zone, even though they presented an order with a different date (6 January 2024). At that point, a verbal confrontation developed between the residents and the soldiers, who eventually gave them back the tractor keys and threatened to use force against them if they did not leave. When the residents started heading back to the village, the soldiers fired tear gas at them.
Yusef Makhamrah, 40, a father of nine from Sadet a-Tha’lah, recounted in a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Basel al-Adrah on 7 January 2024:
We are a family of 13, including seven young children. I make a living off farming and shepherding.
My family and I own 12 dunams of land in the a-Tha’lah plain near our village, also known as the a-Sahlah area, out of about 1,000 dunams of recognized private farmland there. In addition to our land, there are about 200 dunams owned by people who don’t live in the area, which we cultivate with their permission. The remaining 800 are cultivated by the other landowners. The land there is used to grow grains to feed the flocks when they can’t go out to graze.
On Tuesday morning, 2 January 2024, I went with a neighbor of mine, Jamil ‘Awad, 59, to plow our land in a-Sahlah. We called Israeli activists and asked them to join us, and they arrived at 8:00. At 8:30 we went out to the land, and then a white military vehicle arrived and soldiers got out and ran towards us. They tied our hands behind our backs. One of them was a settler we know. The other soldiers stopped the activists from filming.
One of the soldiers kicked me and said I’d tried to hit him. I told him, "Stay away from me. I’m sick," but he kept on kicking me. I was very scared, because we know them as settlers but they were in military uniforms, and we felt they wanted to take revenge on us. We told them it was our private land and we were there to plow and sow, but they said that the land belonged to settlers.
After 10 minutes, more activists arrived. When the soldiers saw them, they untied my hands and let us go. An Israeli activist showed them a statement that the military submitted to the High Court in response to a petition, saying that working on private land or land that doesn’t require prior coordination to enter is allowed. That’s the status of our land. Even so, the officer ordered us to stop working until Civil Administration officials arrived, and they would decide if we were allowed or not.
An hour later, Border Police officers arrived and spoke on the phone with the DCO. They finally gave us permission at 11:40, and we started plowing. A military vehicle stayed by our land, but the soldiers did nothing. They just sat there while we worked.
After we worked for about an hour, a settler arrived on an ATV. He set up an outpost on the hill across from our village three years ago, and constantly harasses us. Another military vehicle drove up. The settler and those soldiers talked for a few minutes with the soldiers who were already there.
Then the soldiers came over to us and demanded we stop working. We argued and said were allowed to work, but they refused to listen and said people from the Civil Administration had to come and decide.
We waited until 4:00 P.M., but no one came from the Civil Administration. We kept checking with them, and they said we had to wait. At 4:00, they came with a closed military zone order and threatened to immediately arrest anyone who stayed there. We had to go home, and they followed us all the way to make sure.
We talked to the lawyer, and she spoke with the Civil Administration. We decided to try and plow the land again on Thursday, 4 January. That day, 35 people from three families gathered with seven tractors. We coordinated with the lawyer, and she confirmed we were allowed to plow that plot of land. At 8:30 A.M., we arrived at the land with Solidarity activists and started scattering seeds while the tractors plowed behind us.
Meanwhile, a settler arrived with a large bulldozer and started digging up earth. Half an hour later, a settlement guard and five other settlers, all of whom we recognized, arrived. They were all in military uniforms.
They stopped the tractors and took the keys away from the drivers. The settlement guard showed us a closed military zone order – but it had the wrong date. We tried to show him the court statement that said we were allowed to work the land.
Afterwards, the soldiers gave us back the tractor keys and forced us to head back towards the village. They fired about six tear gas canisters in our direction. They threatened to confiscate the tractors if we didn't leave, so we had to go. They followed us in their vehicles until we reached the village.