Resistance through the eye of the needle: Masafer Yatta's night guardians

Jalal Al-Amour, 47, sits in the courtyard at the heart of Khirbet Al-Mafqara, one of the hamlets of Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank. The space is known simply as the “protection center”—a patch of open ground ringed with worn car tires, a fire burning at its center, and mattresses and blankets laid out for anyone who needs them.

By 4 pm, men begin to gather. They come in waves, preparing for their nightly shifts guarding the village against settler attacks.

“The settlers here seize everything in front of them,” Al-Amour says, his voice heavy with loss as he speaks of the “tur”—the cave-home where he once lived with his wife and five children—until a settler, shielded by Israeli soldiers, forced him out and took it over.

“I built this cave with my own hands. I lived in it,” he told Al Manassa. But on Oct. 10, 2025, Al-Amour left with his family to visit neighboring Khirbet Al-Fakhit. In his absence, a settler broke down the door and occupied the cave. Al-Amour returned to find his home stolen.

“I reported it to the Israeli police,” he said. “They did nothing. The settler is still there.”

The hamlet is repeatedly attacked by settlers from nearby outposts such as Avigayil and Maon. Water tanks are smashed. Livestock are beaten or stolen. For years, Al-Amour says, settlers have systematically vandalized and seized Palestinian property—even feeding their sheep from trees planted in the yard of Mafqara’s small school.

Khirbet Al-Mafqara lies in a harsh, mountainous stretch of Masafer Yatta, a cluster of 19 Palestinian communities. The residents rely on herding and subsistence farming to survive. Forbidden from building permanent structures, many live in mountain caves or tin shacks.

Against the occupation

Around 20 families live in Khirbet Al-Mafqara. Before the genocide began in 2023, agriculture and livestock were their primary sources of income.

Masafer Yatta lies south of Yatta City in the southern West Bank, between Bypass Road 317 and the 1949 Armistice Line. It is among the areas most aggressively targeted by Israeli authorities and settlers.

The region falls within Area C, under full Israeli military and administrative control as per the Oslo Accords. It spans 57 square kilometers and includes 23 hamlets and villages, inhabited by residents of Yatta and Bedouin families displaced decades ago from Beersheba and the Naqab.

With direct backing from the Israeli government, settlers have established more than 16 outposts and settlements encircling the area. At the same time, Israeli authorities declared 32,000 dunams—roughly 32 square kilometers—of Masafer Yatta a military training zone, known as a “firing zone.” In reality, only about 3% of that land is used for military exercises.

Seventeen Palestinian communities lie within the declared training area, most predating Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank: Jinba, Al-Markaz, Al-Halawa, Khirbet Al-Fakhit, Khirbet Al-Tabban, Khirbet Al-Majaz, Sfai Al-Foqa, Sfai Al-Tahta, Maghayir Al-Abeed, Tuba, Khallet Al-Daba, Al-Kharouba, Khirbet Al-Mafqara, Khirbet Al-Sarura, Al-Rakeez, and Bir Al-Id.

Settler violence in Masafer Yatta, including in Mafqara, is not new. But since Oct. 7, 2023, it has grown more ferocious and more brazen, trampling international law in full view of foreign activists who maintain a near-permanent presence in the area. House demolitions, construction bans, land confiscations, and the rapid establishment of new outposts have intensified.

After what Al-Amour and others endured, residents decided they would no longer leave their land unattended—no matter the reason. They began organizing round-the-clock guard shifts to protect what remains of their homes, their animals, and themselves.

Night watch

Guarding the hamlet is not new. Families have taken turns over the years, whenever danger pressed in. But with the expansion of so-called pastoral settlement—the number of settler herding outposts rising from 12 to 20—the threat has become constant. Settlers and their flocks now roam almost unchecked, seizing what they can, pushing deeper into Palestinian land.

No one can stop them. Even speaking to settlers while they are stealing livestock can lead to arrest. Complaints filed with Israeli police or the army rarely result in action. Residents say the response, when it comes, is protection for the settlers, not accountability.

In earlier years, the army openly backed settlers, though it occasionally responded to Palestinian complaints to curb excesses. Recently, residents say, even that pretense has faded. Support for settlers is overt, while Palestinian grievances are ignored.

What began as an emergency measure has become an organized routine that drains nearly every aspect of social and economic life. From 4 pm until 10 pm, around 20 men give up long hours to guard the village. They are sometimes joined by activists who live in the area, particularly in the village of Al-Tuwani, as well as residents from nearby hamlets.

In the relative safety of the early evening, the watch turns into a communal gathering. Conversations stretch long into dusk. Some men peel away for quieter exchanges. Children play in the courtyard near the guards. A few fall asleep on the shared mattresses until a relative carries them home.

“Without the daily watch, these children would not be able to play so freely and safely,” Al-Amour said. “The settlers attack everyone here, including the children.”

At exactly 10 pm, Al-Amour’s shift ends. He returns to his small home and prepares for his morning job at the municipality of Al-Karmel village, one of Yatta’s communities. Another group takes over, guarding until dawn.

During one of those late shifts, we met Moath Hamamda, 32, a father of two. His watch begins at 10 pm and lasts until 5 am. In the biting winter cold, the men huddle around a fire for warmth. On rainy nights, the task grows harsher and more urgent.

Settlers often exploit bad weather to resume theft and sabotage. So on stormy evenings, the guards gather inside the hamlet’s mosque. Smaller teams rotate through short patrols, circling the homes and animal pens to ensure no one slips in under cover of darkness.

Theft and ruined homes

Electricity in Mafqara is faint at the best of times. The hamlet depends on solar panels, and in winter—when daylight is scarce—power nearly disappears. Most nights are swallowed in darkness.

“The fire is our only source of light and warmth,” Hamamda said.

We met him after he finished a volunteer round in his car, driving through Mafqara and neighboring hamlets to take schoolchildren home. “There are constant settler attacks in Masafer Yatta,” he told Al Manassa. “Some schools are far from the students’ homes, and there are no vehicles to transport them.”

Settlers frequently release their sheep into Palestinian flocks, deliberately mixing the animals before claiming them as their own

Since the genocide in Gaza began in 2023 and settler violence escalated across the West Bank, Hamamda and hundreds of others have lost their livelihoods. Some lost jobs inside Israel after work permits for Palestinian laborers were revoked. Others were cut off from their income in farming and herding after being barred from cultivating their land or grazing their animals.

Under rules imposed by settlers, Palestinians in Masafer Yatta are forbidden from moving more than 50 meters beyond their homes. Grazing or farming becomes impossible. Residents are forced to buy fodder for their animals at their own expense, while settlers’ flocks roam vast open pasture.

Any violation invites punishment. Settlers may again mix their sheep with Palestinian herds to confiscate them, expel families outright, assault them, or destroy crops.

Hamamda says the late-night hours are easier to endure because so many residents have been unemployed since October 2023. They sleep during the day and guard at night.

“All we’re doing is protecting what little we have left,” he said.

Hamamda lives in a small house built from uneven, hand-cut mountain stones, its roof made of corrugated metal. After the dawn prayer, he sleeps for a few hours before beginning his second task: driving children to school. His days run without pause. He rarely leaves Mafqara except for that duty.

He avoids social occasions in Masafer Yatta. His wife visits her family in Yatta City alone. Guarding the hamlet, he says, comes before everything else.

On long nights, the rhythm shifts. “Sometimes we sit in silence, staring at each other or at our phones,” Hamamda said. “Other nights, the elders—despite their age and exhaustion—join us and begin telling stories of the past.”

They recount the years after the occupation began, when soldiers would harass them under the pretext of approaching military training areas. They speak of farming in times of water scarcity and near-total isolation, comparing those hardships with today.

“Nothing has really changed,” Hamamda said. “Water is still scarce. Transportation is still difficult. The settlers’ attacks and ambitions haven’t changed.”

On other nights, when exhaustion overtakes them, the men rotate two-hour naps. The days of danger have stretched on with no relief.

“And even after all this, we’re not safe,” Hamamda said. “We could be sitting here drinking tea when the army comes and starts throwing accusations at us.”

He pauses, then asks what feels like a question directed far beyond the hills of Mafqara: “Is it possible that in 2026 people are still living in caves, without safety, guarding themselves day and night just to protect their property?”

Despite the crushing economic conditions, feeding the guards is a collective duty. Each family brings whatever food they can spare. They share it all—roasting potatoes, preparing saj bread and tomato stew, boiling tea and coffee over open flames.

It is a simple solidarity, but it is what keeps them going.

Residents say there is no official government support, despite public claims about backing steadfast communities in areas threatened with confiscation.

Most residents of Masafer Yatta are described as indigenous—Bedouin communities recognized by the United Nations as having the right to self-determination and protection from the seizure of their land. Yet Israeli authorities disregard those rights.

There is no stability here. No secure work. None of the basic conditions for a dignified life. And still, the people of Mafqara—and of Masafer Yatta more broadly—remain on their land, guarding it with open eyes, whatever the cost.