On June 30, 2009 in the afternoon, at around 6:30 pm, my husband, who is a taxi driver was asleep in the bedroom. The taxi was parked out in front. I was doing laundry, and the washing machine was making noise. From the bathroom window, I saw my neighbor and her children running on the road by our house. Only later did I hear people shouting. That’s a well-known signal that settlers from Yizhar are coming towards the village – people start shouting. I quickly woke my husband up so he could move the taxi to a safer spot. I walked him to the yard. I saw soldiers on the tall hill across from our house, about a kilometer away. I also saw a group of soldiers on the hill. About one hundred settlers, running towards our house. I called my husband, who had managed to move the car in time, and warned him not to come home. On the hill below Yizhar I could see two cars, one blue-black, maybe a jeep, and the second car was white, maybe a jeep belonging to the settlement civilian security coordinator or the DCO. My sister called me from her house, which is on the other side of the village, she has a good lookout from her house, and she yelled that there were settlers by the house.
I asked my children to help me lock the doors and windows. The settlers began throwing rocks at the house. My sister, who was still on the line, said they had retreated a bit. I opened the window and saw twenty masked settlers standing with their backs to the house, about ten meters away.
In the meantime, people came from the village arrived and threw rocks back at the settlers. We calmed down, and the older children and I opened the door and went outside. I saw the settlers rioting on the hill, throwing rocks at the people. After a few moments they began shooting too. Nobody was injured. People from our village took cover by our house. One of the neighbors sat by the well in our yard and photographed the settlers, who were to the south-east and were still shooting at us. One settler used a slingshot to throw stones. This all went on for an hour or more.
I called the Palestinian DCO, they didn’t know about the incident. Right after that, an Israeli DCO officer named S called me to ask what was happening. I said, listen to the shooting. At about 7:45 pm, soldiers arrived from the direction of the settlement to where my house is and starting shooting tear gas at people. About twenty people were injured by the gas. When I left the house again, I saw my neighbors talking to the army. They refused to leave the area of my house. The army moved to a hill across the house. The neighbors waited until the international volunteers arrived from Huwarah. Damage to our house: signs of bullets on the marble coating of the walls, and signs of rocks on the window grilles.
The following day, on July 1 at around 3 pm, the neighbors called me and said there were settlers by my house again. I tried to photograph them. I couldn’t see whether they were soldiers or settlers. I called and reported this to the Palestinian DCO. A few minutes later, officer S from the Israeli DCO called me again. Apparently the Palestinian DCO informed the Israeli DCO, like the day before. He promised to come investigate, but he didn’t come.
On the day of the incident, I was asleep in the late afternoon after work, when my wife woke me and then I heard honking and whistling, which are a signal in the village for settlers rioting. It was about after 6 pm. I went out to the yard to see what was happening. I was concerned about my taxi being damaged, it was parked on the road by the house. I saw three soldiers by the settler’s caravan on the hill across from our house, and two more on the hill by our house. I thought nothing exceptional would happen because of the soldiers’ presence. Because of the way the house is positioned, it hides part of the hill and I couldn’t see the settlers. I got into my taxi and drove to the village to move the taxi away from our house.
When I reached the village, my wife called and warned me not to come home. She said there were a lot of settlers coming down the hill towards our house. At this point I still couldn’t see anything. Only after parking the taxi by my brother’s house in the center of the village and climbing up to his roof did I see settlers walking towards my house, at least twenty, all masked. They approached my house and began throwing rocks. I decided to go back, I took a different car and went back towards my house. In the meantime, people from the village had gathered and began running at the settlers. When we climbed the hill, they were above us and began shooting in the air, and then at the ground, they didn’t try to shoot us directly.
The soldiers stood on the hill and didn’t keep the settlers away. They tried to disperse us. That always happens. It’s like a ritual. They don’t move the settlers away, but they do move us back.