In this third episode of the ISM podcast our guest is Sami Hurreini, who is a really inspiring youth organiser from At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills. He's part of a group called Youth of Sumud. 

Sumud is an arabic word meaning steadfastness, and its a central concept in the Palestinian popular resistance to the occupation. 

We spoke to Sami in December 2022 about what people are doing to survive in the face of the occupation's policies, and about what drew him to organising paricularly as youth. 

View episode transcript here

Links

• Youth of Samud's twitter
• Save Masafer Yatta website
• International Solidarity Movement call to action - Masafer Yatta
• Masafer Yatta - communities Israel is trying to drive out - by Btselem

If you would like an explanation of the terms used in this podcast, you can find a useful glossary on pages 140-154 of Shoal Collective's Ebook Interviews with Radical Palestinian Women.

Supported by Shoal Collective.

Hey, welcome to international solidarity

movement podcast [followed by Arabic translation]

Hey and welcome to the third episode of the ISM

podcast.  Our guest this episode is Sami Hurreini, who is

a really inspiring youth organiser from At-Tuwani in the

South Hebron Hills. He's part of a group called Youth of Sumud.

Sumud is an arabic word meaning steadfastness, and its a really

central concept in the Palestinian popular resistance

to the occupation.

The South Hebron Hills is a rural,sparsely populated area in

the South of the West Bank. Its incredibly beautiful, but

subject to intense violence from the Israeli army and colonists.

I first met Sami in 2018, when Youth of Sumud were first

becoming active. Youth organisers decided that they had

had enough of watching the occupation taking more an more

of their land, they decided to try to take some of it back.

They did this by starting to renovate caves in the village of

Surura, and establishing a community centre there, in order

to restablish a Palestinian presence in the area.

Youth of Sumud had a lot of success in Surura, but they were

also met with repression. Sami has been imprisoned for his

organising, and hospitalised by the violence of the settlers.

But Youth of Sumud refuses to be intimdated. Right now in the

South Hebron Hills, the Israeli occupation is preparing to evict

the residents of the villages of Masafer Yatta, something that

has been being planned for decades. Residents have been

resisting the evictions in the courts for more than twenty

years, But in July last 2022, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled

that the evictions could go ahead.

Local people are standing their ground, in the face of massively

increased pressure from the Israeli state - which includes

demolitions of houses and schools.

The International Solidarity Movement is supporting the

resistance of the people in Masafer Yatta - and is calling

for international volunteers to join the struggle there.

We spoke to Sami last December [2022] about what people are

doing to survive in the face of the occupation's policies, and

about what drew him to organising paricularly with

youth.

Okay, so we're here with Sami from Youth of Sumud. And that's

an organization based in Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills.

But right now we're waiting outside of Ofer Military Prison

close to Ramallah, for a comrade from At-Tuwani to be released

from prison. And we thought we'd take the opportunity to do an

interview about Youth of Sumud. So Sami, could you introduce

yourself? And well, first of all, could you explain the

pressure that people face from the occupation in the South

Hebron Hills, and particularly the current situation? And in

Masafer Yatta? If that would be okay.

Yeah, and thank you for being here with us today, and

So my father and my uncles were all in the same path she did,

for this interview. Okay, so I'm Sami Hurreini, I am an activist

resisting and struggling [against] the occupation. She

from Masafer Yatta. I'm 25 years old. I was raised up and born in

Masafer Yatta, in a family - in like a very struggling family

was supportive of my dad’s choice in Masafer Yatta, in

against occupation. Starting from my grandmother [who was a]

beginning of 2000, to support him in the choice of non-violent

refugee in 1948, and then to my father. And my grandmother, when

she was evicted from her land in '48, coming to Masafer Yatta,

resistance against the occupation. Moving forward to

growing up her family and raising up her family in, very

election, she was also joining the protest he was organizing,

awareness, to raise awareness of the situation and to continue to

be involved in this struggle against occupation.

and all those efforts he was doing, and continuing to

encourage him. So as well as my dad was the leader, I grew up in

this family. And me personally, so I am going on in the same

path to continue this resistance and this struggle in the -

against occupation. And despite all this aggression, and daily

harassment and violent aggression, we live [in] and we

face from this occupation, we need to continue to resist and struggle.

You were involved in establishing a group called

Youth of Sumud. Could you tell us about that group and why you

decided specifically to organize as youth in Masafer Yatta?

Yeah, I am the coordinator of small local youth group from

Masafer Yatta, called Youth of Sumud. Our group was established

in 2017. Our group was established after an activity

called Sumud Freedom Camp where we all as activists started to

go back and to live in [an] evicted Palestinian village in

Masafer Yatta called Sarura. But we as youth, we saw like, yani,

step by step, like we start to see a few people start to be

present. So we start[ed] to have internal discussion that we

would like to continue to live [in] this village and to go on

with activity of Sumud Freedom Camp: Rehabilitating the caves

and rehabilitating the life in the village, encouraging

families who are evicted from the village due to settler

violence and Israeli military harassment. So to encourage the

people who were evicted to come back to their land to their

villages.

And since then, we, as we expected, everyone went after

some months, so we remained there, we continue with the idea

and step by step we called ourselves you know, Youth of

Sumud. And also we wanted to practice our activism and our

role in our community, led by our decision, by our

determination. So we started to say that we are here to, yani,

to move on from a new generation perspective. Not to continue

following the lead of the - yani - being haunted by the old

generation. So we can be independent in our work and in

our struggle and really to occupy this youth energy against

occupation from you know, yes, youth perspective. Then we

started moving on from Sarura to other activities, like with the

children and their shepherd accompaniment with international

activists, then we started to move on, step by step by step to

get involved in more and more with organizing protests and

activism.

Just about Youth of Sumud - I wanted to ask you about that

name, Youth of Sumud, because that, that word is really

important in Palestine, but people listening, they probably

won't understand what it means. So why did you choose this name?

And what does it mean? What was the concept of Sumud,

steadfastness in Palestine?

Yeah, good question. Yani - sumud means in Palestine,

exactly; sumud means steadfastness, means resilience,

means resistance. We have like, it's a very known word in

Palestine, which is - yeah - sumud. And we are also, yani, in

Youth of Sumud with strong youth, with very powerful youth.

Because yani, especially with what we lived, and we have, what

we faced in Sarura, due to occupation, harassment – it

wasn't something easy. We were beaten, were attacked, we were

arrested, we were imprisoned in order [for them] to evict us

from the place and from the land. And this didn't succeed.

And that is what's the meaning of Sumud. Despite all this

violence, despite all this craziness, you are continu[ing]

to resist and never giving up. This is [the] meaning of Sumud.

So this is this is a term, which existed before the group,

right. It's a term which is really important for Palestinian

That is very true, yani Palestinian[s] have been doing a

resistance.

lot of great stories of sumud and steadfastness in front of

this occupation since more than since '48. You know, we are

continuing until today to [be] steadfast, to struggle, and

never giving up.

And what were the difficulties that you faced in

organizing the youth? Was it easy for people to be involved

and what were the obstacles that you encountered?

It's not easy work. Because we are facing so many

challenges and threats by the Israeli occupation that since

the beginning of creating our group, we were fighting hardly,

we had army coming in raiding us in the middle of night. Taking

us to interrogations to - in the end of these interrogations -

threatening us to stop us from what we are doing. And we [were]

still in the beginning of the idea. So in the end of the

interrogation, a lot of guys were interrogated, uh even

minors because... Okay, [they said] "in the end, why, what

you're doing here is causing to troubles, if you continue to be

there, you will be imprisoned, go home, don't try to stay

there, blah, blah, blah." And so that means there, there was like

really, so many challenges and even yani, this is the

occupation side, which wanted - don't want any movement from

going on.

And additionally to that we have the also internally which is

very difficult sometimes because it is also [that] people have

commitments, you need people to be committed 24 hours. But we

try and we had some challenges of university and schools to

make this continue to happen, because our goal in Sarura [was]

to maintain 24 hour presence. So we started really hardly in the

beginning, gathering all the guys together, but in the end,

we managed to succeed to go out with a proper plan, when someone

had lectures in school and others can cover. People stay

for nights and some people stay for day[time]. And so in this

way we could manage to continue this presence and to continue to

the idea to move on with… you know, even sometimes families

[are] scared for their children because as I told you, like I

was personally ran over by settlers [with a] car. This is

also mak[ing] them scared for their kids, but also this is

[happening] there to prevent us from really having the group

existing. And having the group continuing on working and

reaching to where we are now a more and more involved in, in

the political situation.

When you were run over by the settlers and was that Sarura

or the village that you were trying to bring people back to?

Yeah it happened in Sarura during our working program, we

were organizing, we were building a toilet for a cave

which belonged to a family. [That is] like one of the things

we are doing is to build and to plant the land and to really

recreate a total life in evicted places in order to get,

encourage, people to get back [to the villages]. So during

Yeah, I was run over by settlers from Havat

Ma'on with the car. It says like targeting also me personally as

my role was appearing in the group - so they really wanted to

target me, and hit me, so... that's what they did. I was not

able to work for months [because of] that.

And you think they targeted you because you were an

organizer in the group?

Yeah, yeah. For my role and for my you know, I was

appearing a lot in my role, and my work there.

And have people faced prison also for their

organising?

For sure, yani, this is something if you're [an]

activist in Palestine, something you will have to experience

here, which is prison. Also me personally, during Sarura I was

in prison, based on pressure from settlers and the military.

There was also my colleagues in the group - most of them also

were in prison and [experienced] interrogation because of being

and working in Sarura and resisting there. Because the

main goal was there to maintain presence in order to stop

settlement expansion because Sarura is very close to Havat

Ma'on [an illegal settlement], and presence of people there -

it is the best way for stopping the settlement from expanding.

And so they were trying to all the time do all the ways -

prison and whatever - to pull us out of there. And besides, you

know, all this, the main goal, we went in that place because

there was also settler strange movement around that land and in

that area in that period, where we moved us to go there [to

Sarura].

And the settlers in the area - can you say a little bit

about them - that they're a particularly violent group of

settlers, right?

Yeah. We have like really very violent settlers in the

South Hebron Hills and especially where Sarura and

At-Tuwani is, where I come from, that is my village. Sarura and

At-Tuwani are next to Havat Ma’on outpost, which is known in

the area as one of the most violent [places where] settlers

[are] in the area. Which is, they are organizing a lot of

violent and criminal activity against us in there. We

[can] talk about attacking shepherds with sticks and with

stones, or by slingshot, yes slingshots. We'll talk about

burning fields, destroying olive trees, attacking kids who are

going to school. We're talking about stabbing people. A cousin

of a colleague in our group was stabbed by settlers from Havat

Ma’on from his way, from Tuba to At-Tuwani. We have poisoning of

water wells that [is] where we gather water for Masafer Yatta.

And these wells in the ground - settlers came and poisoned them,

poisoning the fields of the grazing area where our shepherds

go. We are well known in Masafer Yatta for grazing and with

planting the lands. So the settlers – for grazing, they

throw poison wheat seeds and barley seeds, so sheep will eat

them and die. And also, we talk about yani, we talked about

burning fields where people after a long time harvesting and

gathering their fields or crops, they come and burn them or burn

the caves, like what happened in Sarura, destroying cars [that

belong to] us. I mean, attacking kids - like I said it was last

September in 2021. Settlers made a big violent attack in Mufaqara

- attacking people, kids. [A] small child, his skull was

fractured. We talk about something you can’t really

imagine, all these acts done by settlers.

And who help[s] the settlers to continue moving on with these

criminal programs? It is the Israeli soldiers and police

because they give them the full protection and immunity to do

all these criminal attacks. When they don't face any consequences

or judgment for [what they] actually do they just continue

to be more and more professional in this, in this violent and

criminal attack[s]. This is continu[ing] to confirm to

everyone that what's happening here: cooperation between

Israeli settler and military and police in order to kick

Palestinians out from their land, ethnically cleanse

Palestinians from their land and to, yani, confiscate Palestinian

land. What we see in Masafer Yatta, there are settlements,

even inside what the military has, what the so called Firing

Zone 918, and the settlement and the settlers face no

consequences. But the one - the only ones to face consequences

is Palestinians. We have a new [Israeli] settlement expanding

in the firing zone, they face no consequences, they face no

threat of demolition.

So this is confirmed that the main goal of evicting villages

in Masafer Yatta under the title of firing zone is to kick us out

and then give the land to the settlers. So, big settler

colonization, colonial project, of Palestinian land here [is]

happening, full cooperation between military and between

settlers to kick out Palestinians, to put settlers

[here], to delete our identity from this land after evicting

us.

So you talked about the evictions going on from, and

then the demolitions going on inside the firing zone. And just

yesterday, there were confiscations of tents and

demolitions which happened. And just this year, the court ruled

that there was no legal barrier to the eviction of villages

inside the firing zone. Is that right?

No like I think what's happening in Masafer Yatta, 40

years ago, more than 40 years ago, Israeli authorities

designated the area as a firing zone area to train them Israeli

military. This is the excuse they found to target our land,

where we live exactly. So all the villages in Masafer Yatta,

live inside what is designated as a firing zone area, which we

are living here in this land, and for decades went peacefully

and with a beautiful life. But then when the Israeli military

came and these military rules and with the settlement in the

beginning of the ‘80s, as well, the life started turning upside

down from the, the ongoing demolishing, from the ongoing

harassment, preventing any main services of life to access to

us. So the main goal really, between these two, like what's

because they wanted to make an

environment of forcible transfer - for forcible transfer - for

our people to leave the land. This didn't work. So then in

‘99, there was the first crime of eviction and demolition

Masafer Yatta, where the Israeli military trucks and forces

started to raid the villages, demolishing homes, transporting

people with their properties, and throwing them out from the

area close to the city of Yatta in the South Hebron Hills.

When this didn't work, because they were evicting people,

people were coming back in the same day in the same night,

digging their caves, again - that the military has demolished

- to live inside them. So all the area was evicted in that

time. But by the beginning of 2000, because of so many

activism and struggle and pressure, there was a decision

by the Israeli court, that Palestinians are allowed to go

back to their land and to their villages.

But it is a temporary decision, [it] will continue to be a

temporary decision until a new decision will come and cancel

it. So since 2000 until May 2022, we were in courts, in the

Israeli courts, facing and judging and having different

court sessions and court hearings in order to... against

the eviction, but since the same decision in 2000, came out in

May 2022, is the eviction again. So this is confirmed that

Israeli - because Palestinian[s] bring the ownership of the land

in Masafer Yatta, Palestinians brought all the proofs and

testimonies, testimony of the ownership of the land and of the

history of living in that place. From shop registrations and

other examples. This all was brought to the court, but all

this was thrown into the garbage because the head of the court

also was a settler. So, and then the decision of eviction was

again. Now the eviction decision saying now for eight villages.

But that is a big lie - because if eviction takes place for

eight villages, it will take place all others that are not

mentioned in the decision, because [inaudible]. And as I

said, settlement is existing and they are not facing anything.

Yesterday in Masafer Yatta there was the the demolition and

confiscation of tents in Khallet a-Daba' for example. Khallet

a-Daba' is one of the eight villages which now have

demolition order for all the structure, and everything there.

So now they are using the policy of demolishing stuff step by

step, which is they don't want to make the same way they used

in the ‘99 which is carrying people in trucks. they now want

to use demolishing, homeless-ing people - making people without

a home. I'm not allowed to have any shelter: and then people

will go away. That's that's the Israeli plan. But on the other

hand, we as an activist, we started also trying to organize

some other, I dunno, small initiative on the ground now.

Because investing in the caves, the renovation of the caves - so

there will be plan B if demolition is carried out. But

this is not a solution because the eviction will continue to

run after our people. So we need a really serious solution for

this and which is to stop the eviction, stop the occupation,

[and] racist policies against Palestinians.

Because if we succeed to have in Masafer Yatta, then it will

succeed to happen in other places, because in this century,

where we are living, which is all the international law,

international law exists. And international law and [the]

international community eyes are open to the situation. Israel is

brave to do this because of the hypocrisy of the international

law. Maybe Israel will also show that the international law will

not do anything. So that is also a big problem; we are facing a

war crime in our land, which is considered - this is [considered

a] crime by the Fourth Geneva Convention, and we don't see any

really serious acts against this by the international community,

which is making us all really upset and angry. And this is

confirming the hypocrisy of the international law towards [the]

Palestinian cause and Palestinian rights.

Can you explain the work you're doing as Youth of Sumud

with people in Masafer Yatta to resist at the moment. And also

what would you need from people from outside and in terms of

support, to support your resistance?

Yeah in Masafer Yatta, yani, we really call upon

everyone to come down to Masafer Yatta and spend time in Masafer

Yatta. We have really so many different spots now. We have the

village of Khallet a-Daba', we have Sfey school that was also

recently demolished, we have schools now [that] will be

demolished in Fakheit, in Jinba - we are having a big problem

that we also need people to be here on the ground with us to

support us, to support our work, to join our work, to resist this

occupation to bring to help us to transfer our message from the

reality of what we are living on the ground. And to really help

us to stop this eviction from happening.

We ask everyone abroad to visit, to talk, to contact to his

elected person in parliament in the government, to put pressure

on them to take act[ion] for Masafer Yatta to put more

pressure on the Israeli government to stop this from

happening. And do it everyone should get involved on the

ground. Beside this, to join BDS [Boycott Divestment Sanctions

movement] to put more sanctions. And in Israel, because Israel

[is] without facing any sanction without any boycott, Israel will

just continue to do whatever it wants without taking into

consideration of an international law or an

international agreement in this settler colonial project of

Palestine that Israel is doing. So we need really immediate

act[ions] right now from people to do and to have. And we have

really a lot of activities, people can come and help us.

They can join us with the protests, they can join us with

working programs who are organizing to support our

people, to document, to be there to help us to defend when

bulldozers come... and I have so many things people can join and

participate [in] and we call upon everyone to come here to be

here to work, and help us here and resisting this war crime

that is happening.

Okay, and just a final question like, so you've been

involved in youth organizing now for five years. And I wonder if

you could share some successes of the youth organizing that

you've done in Masafer Yatta in those years?

And we were happy to cooperate with them – with [the] old

generation. That in fact is the main point for me, we are happy

to work with them to cooperate in things - not to fight, not to

be against each other. But also we want to have our own body,

our own choice, decision, to take to work our work [and]

working space. Because also we want to be independent.

Do you work with other youth organizations around

Palestine also?

Yeah, we started with the Youth of Sumud to [make] other

connections with different youth groups, Hebron and Bethlehem and

Ramallah, north west Jerusalem, Nablus. We want to started to

build like this, networking, and doing different activities

together. Like go and do activities and work in north

west Jerusalem, invite them to Masafer Yatta, invite them to do

activities with children, with activist[s], with youth. It was

like a lot of youth exchange activities we have done and we

are doing, and doing really good.

And in those years of youth organizing can you can you pick

out like, have you had some successes, like, are there

moments where you think - where you thought - that you're being

effective and successful?

Yani we had a lot of yani efforts and things we did. And

we are happy that at least we are doing all these efforts

towards [resisting the] occupation to support the sumud

of our people. And that is something we are happy to say,

that we are proud that we manage. And we succeed to do

this. Because all our activities we are doing [are] mainly aiming

to really continue to support sumud of our people in all

levels. I mean, logistically, also with some intellectual

lectures, with lawyers - with so many different things of raising

awareness, all this stuff, we were very proud of it as a step

in the ground. We were very happy and proud of launching [a]

campaign like joining [the] olive harvest farmers in

different places, in the whole West Bank, against settler

violence. In order to continue to encourage people to go to

their land, despite all the violence they see. So the people

in connection to their land wont be weak. So we want to continue

to support it. Even with the violence of the settlers etc.,

And I see now, the recent project of renovation of caves.

We have a lot of campaigns we have launched online, and we

were very proud that we are doing all this work, to raise

awareness to ask people to take actions, to defend Masafer Yatta

or defund racism and moving on with so many campaigns. And the

other thing we have, like we see that the work we are doing is

getting [an] audience. Like we started with also a few people

listening and watching to what we do, but we see now a lot of

people are following us and our work, especially in social

media, we now have, what, 7000 followers on our account and

this stuff. This also means that we are kind of having our place,

our own seat, and our own work, which is - we are very happy and

very proud about, and moving on with other activities.

I'm so happy about it, because we as Youth of Sumud started in

2017 from the caves and now we are continuing with [it]. It's a

heritage; we need to protect it, and we are now with the

political situation. We are starting to [with] people - we

need to renovate the caves because they are a heritage

thing and also for political reason that now if eviction

happened, they will be emergency spot[s] where people will take

it as a shelter to live inside again. And people were very

excited and happy to go back to this one.

Well there's some amazing organizing that has been going

on over the years and how many people want to know more about

Youth of Sumud and the campaign, the solidarity with Masafer

Yatta. You can look at the Save Masafer Yatta website. We're

here volunteering with the International Solidarity

Movement (ISM), who supports and works with the people from Youth

of Sumud and Masafer Yatta. And you can take a look at our

website palsolidarity.org.

Is there anything else you wanted to add?

Yes, and I'm sorry that I forgot this point, which is

thanks for ISM for all the organizing and the work and

effort they're doing, representing the international

solidarity, support and solidarity in Palestine. Because

something also on a personal level - very, very important -

when my dad was attacked and imprisoned in September and

jailed, how much the international presence was

important as a testimony and as [a] documenter for the attack

that happened to my dad, which has saved him from years and

years of prison. When the activist from ISM had recorded a

video [of] 23 minutes showing the whole incident, when

settlers attacked my dad. Even [though] he was [the one]

attacked, my dad was in prison. And settlers said my dad

attacked them. But the video of the ISM guy saved him from

prison for life. And for all the work of defending Masafer Yatta,

[that] ISM is doing for all this time - is very important for us

and really supporting our work there so much. We ask everyone

to, yeah, to be connected with ISM, to follow and to connect

and come here, InshAllah, and to see all of you and to get more

involved in resistance here, and in supporting Palestinians.

Thank you so much for talking to us.