This article is about modern Israeli settlement in the West Bank. For the nearby archaeological site, see Susya. For the Palestinian village, see Khirbet Susya.
The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.[2]
History
Playground in Susya
Susya was established between May and September 1983, on 1,800 dunams of land. It was expanded in late 1999 by installing 10 caravans on 4 dunams of land belonging to a Palestinian family, the Shreiteh.[3] In 1985, the Susya Tourism and Education Center was established which offers tours and activities in the nearby archaeological site of Susya. The center has a hostel and a pool.[4][5]
On 23 March 1993, Musa Suliman Abu Sabha, a Palestinian was arrested outside Susiya by two guards, Moshe Deutsch and Yair Har-Sinai, because they suspected he was planning an attack on Jews.[6] Taken for questioning, he stabbed in the shoulder or back one of the guards, Moshe Deutsch, while the two were in a car, and, wrestled to the ground, was bound hand and foot. Another settler from nearby Maal Hever, Yoram Shkolnik[7] shot him eight times, killing him.[6] According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), he was found bearing a grenade, although the Baltimore Sun attributed assertions that, "the grenade had previously been removed from him" to unspecified "other sources.[8] Shkolnik was arrested and served seven and a half years in prison for murder.[9]
Susya Synagogue
On 2 July 2001, the body of Yair Har-Sinai, a Jewish shepherd of 19 years from Susya who advocated pacifism was found shot in the head and chest by Muhammad Noor from nearby Khirbet Susya.[10][11]
On October 16 2005, one of three victims of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades shooting attack at Gush Etzion,[12] a fifteen-year-old boy named Oz Ben-Meir, from Ma'on is buried in the Susya cemetery in the southeastern portion of the settlement across Road 317 from the main housing section of this settlement. A friend and he were on their way to visit Jerusalem when he was killed.[13][14] According to the media, thousands attended his funeral and burial.[15] In 2006, it had a population of 737.[16][3][17]
In 2008, a large advanced goat pen and dairy, incorporated as Halav Ha'aretz, Susya Dairy Ltd., was inaugurated on Susya's lands with an investment of 3.5 million ILS. It produced goat yoghurt for the Israeli market from a herd of 1500 goats, 48 of which can be milked simultaneously.[18][19]
Many former Afrikaner Christians, after converting to Judaism, have settled in Susya, which has become a notable stronghold for their group.[20]
↑ Judy Maltz, 'Cleansed by the Torah': Why These Afrikaners Converted to Judaism and Moved to IsraelHaaretz 30 September 2021:'Like many Orthodox Jews, they also tend to be quite right-wing in their politics. It is no coincidence, then, that many have ended up living in West Bank settlements. Indeed, one of their main strongholds – aside from Ra'anana, which is popular among South African immigrants in general, and more recently the rural community of Yavne'el in northern Israel – is the settlement of Susya in the South Hebron Hills. . .Among the first Afrikaner converts to make aliyah were the Taljaards from Randfontein, a gold-mining city near Johannesburg. They came in the mid-1990s and began raising sheep in the settlement of Susya, where they were often involved in violent clashes with Palestinians from nearby villages in the South Hebron Hills. Jacob, the eldest of 14 children in the family, was killed in a tractor accident several years ago. He once famously told an Israeli television reporter that he “loved” the apartheid system and thought it was “the best thing in the world.”'
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