Description
In the South Hebron Hills (SHH) of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) there are 32 small Palestinian farmer and Bedouin communities living and working on land from which the Israeli state and settlers seek to expel them. To support the local civil resistance, numerous actors (Palestinian, Israeli and international) have sought to protect the civilian population from the escalating acts of violence by the Israeli state and settlers in which their crops, livestock, dwellings and lives have been targeted.
This paper seeks to analyse the interventions, motives, and challenges faced by civilian actors to support the local communities in their attempts to create safer spaces within which they can continue to maintain their livelihoods, hold on to their land and way of life. The paper will explore the extent to which ‘divisions of labour’ emerged between the different actors and the symbiotic relationship between the local and the “outsiders”. It examines how the indigenous knowledge, local structures and wisdom of the local communities been utilised in the civilian protection. Finally, the presentation examines how the war on Gaza impacted on this research.
