Nablus- As soon as the elderly Shukri Melitat and the worshipers finished performing the evening prayer and sat chatting for a while as usual, when the extremist settler “Kobi” and others with him surprised them with heavy, direct gunfire that almost killed them all.
Difficult moments were experienced by the seventy-year-old citizen of Melitat and the residents, a few days ago, when settlers attacked the “Beit al-Sheikh” mosque in Khirbet Tana (Khirbet is a small village) near the town of Beit Furik in the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank.
Tana’s homes and service facilities, such as its only school, roads, and electricity and water networks, were destroyed several times, and its homes built of tents and tin and even the caves in which the people sought refuge were demolished.
Violent night
The “Sheikh’s House” remained steadfast, facing the Israeli demolition machine and the extremism of the settlers, until it became a mosque where citizens led to pray and worship, as their last means of visiting and defending their land, as the occupation allowed them to enter the village to pray only.
Melitat describes the recent attack on the “Sheikh’s House” as “the most serious” among the many violations that the occupation is constantly committing against Tana to Judaize it.
He told Al Jazeera Net, “The settler Kobe and his sons attacked us, and they shot us with live bullets. We fell to the ground, then threatened us with force of arms not to move, until the occupation forces arrived, which supported the settlers.”
In fact, Mlitat and the worshipers remained as they were, and when the occupation soldiers arrived, they also began shooting, then kicked and beat them with rifle butts, and detained the worshipers until two o’clock in the morning, while the settler boys were taking pictures of the citizens lying on the ground in a “humiliating” condition.
Melitat added, “One of the soldiers pulled me back forcefully by the head, and two others tried to break my back, and I am still suffering from severe pain.”
After that, Melitat added, “They released us at dawn, and required that we leave immediately. When we were about to get into the vehicles, it turned out that they had stolen two of our phones. They arrested a young man and took him to the nearby settlement of Itamar. They later released him after beating him violently.”
This incident only increased the people’s determination and adherence to their land, and they maintained the pace of communication, staying in the “Sheikh’s House” and praying there.
Displacement practices
The construction of the Sheikh’s House dates back to the Ottoman era, and is more than 200 years old. It was like a “stake” that stabilized the people of Tana and a rampart to protect it over time, especially after the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, when the Israeli occupation began targeting the village in every way to displace its people and confiscate its lands.
Tana, which was inhabited by more than 400 people, was demolished 13 times, especially in the last two decades, the last of which was after October 7, 2023.
The coordinator of the popular campaign to defend Tana says: Thaer Hanni The occupation used multiple methods to displace people, including:
- Control of water sources.
- Prosecuting and intimidating citizens and suppressing them by arresting, beating, and detaining them.
- The village’s only school was demolished several times.
- Destruction of infrastructure, including the electricity network and roads.
- Demolishing citizens’ homes, residences, and agricultural facilities.
- Poisoning and stealing livestock.
- Destruction and reduction of pastoral areas after settlers seized them.
Despite this, Hanni adds, the residents held on to their land, and the last 10 families (about 50 people) remained in Tana until last January, when the settlers attacked them with weapons and gunfire, and pursued them until they expelled them from it.
Prayer is their hope
In the face of the Israeli uprooting attempts, the residents of Tana took refuge in the “Sheikh’s House”, and their hope was a rope that would connect them to their village and defend their land, which the occupation prohibited them from entering except to pray on Fridays only.
Regarding this, Hanni says, “The Sheikh’s house has always been a means of protecting Tana. From a place where people took shelter after the demolition of their homes, then to a school where they taught their children, it became a mosque and a witness to our right to the land.”
In the face of the occupation’s policies of demolishing Palestinian homes and buildings, under false pretexts and pretexts, these places, such as “Beit Al-Sheikh,” stand up to some extent, as they existed before the occupation of the West Bank in 1967.
Hanni points out that in 2020 they formed the “Popular Campaign to Defend Tana” to confront the occupation’s policies and practices, and they intended to prepare the “Sheikh’s House” to be a mosque.
He continues that in the popular campaign, they took it upon themselves to prepare the mosque and provide it with the required copies of the Qur’an, books, a preacher, and an imam, and to invite people to pray and worship in it, “so that it remains tall and steadfast in the face of settlement and Judaization.”
However, the “Sheikh’s House” was not spared from the attacks of the settlers who constantly attacked it, wreaked havoc on its contents and attacked the worshipers, to deter, intimidate and prevent them from praying in it, to the point where repairing and rebuilding it became difficult.
Activist Hanni added, “The settlers burned the Qur’an, destroyed the pulpit, and stole the contents of the mosque to prevent the worshipers who would stand firm and preserve the Arab identity of the place.”
Consequences of Judaization
With the Judaization of Tana, the occupation takes control of 18 thousand dunams (one dunam = one thousand square metres), which is all of its land, and separates it from its geographical and social continuity in the town of Beit Furik, which will turn into a large prison surrounded by settlements, according to Hanani.
The occupation also wants to cut Tana off from its natural extension with the Palestinian Jordan Valley, thus depriving the citizens of their food basket, and seizing their pastures and plains, which “enough wheat and barley grains for Nablus Governorate.”
From more than 10,000 sheep and 500 cows, livestock decreased to 3,000 sheep and only 50 cows, due to attacks by the occupation and its settlers, especially after the occupation expelled the livestock owners and dispersed them far from the village.
By confiscating all the village lands, tens of thousands of citizens will be deprived of their only tourist destination, which contains water springs and Roman pools.
38 thousand attacks
What the occupation has done is ongoing, and it continues to do so in Khirab and other nearby villages, such as “Yanun,” “Al-Tawil,” “Al-Fajm,” and “Duma,” east and south of Nablus, and many areas in the West Bank, to displace its people, settle in them, and connect them with the Jordan Valley settlements.
An official report by the Wall and Settlement Authority – at the beginning of this month – revealed that settlers have carried out 38,359 attacks on the lands, property and lives of Palestinians in the West Bank since the outbreak of the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Through their terrorist practices – in addition to the practices of the occupation forces and authorities – they displaced 33 Bedouin communities, consisting of 455 families with 2,853 individuals, from their homes to other places.
The occupation allowed the people to enter Tana to pray in the “Sheikh’s House” only, and limited it to Fridays, but they refuse and continue to pray at all times, out of worship, bond, and confirmation of their presence in their land.
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