Villagers and farmers in the South Hebron hills live in fear of rogue attacks – on their people, animals and land.

Susya, West Bank – Wadi Raheem is a dry riverbed near the Palestinian village of Susya in the South Hebron hills in the occupied West Bank. The area has a stark beauty that is characterised by rolling hills, rocky outcrops and stunning vistas. Despite the generally poor soil, Palestinians have managed to eke out an existence here – reportedly since at least the 1830s – by practising subsistence farming and animal herding.

It is four o’clock in the afternoon and brutally hot. Khalil al-Harini, who owns part of the wadi, has asked me and two other activists to accompany him as he grazes his sheep. Israeli settlers have been harassing him for decades, but the frequency and severity of the attacks have increased significantly in the months since October 7, and he is worried.

Al-Harini is 81 years old, and his face, framed by a plain white keffiyeh, is lined from exposure to the sun. But he walks energetically among his sheep, waving his stick at them when they stray too far. He tells me his grandfather’s father was born on this land, and I can picture the same idyllic scene taking place a century earlier – an old man tending to his herd silently, with only the sheep’s rhythmic munching of the dry grass interrupting the quiet.

This stillness belies a deep concern for his family. His 15-year-old grandson, also named Khalil, had been threatened the previous day in the wadi.

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