Atta Loses Last Plot of Land
Two JCB bulldozers arrived on Sunday, 3rd May, 2026 as work began to clear land to widen highway 60 that goes through the Jaber family land. This means that Atta has now lost his last plot of land.
Since 1998, ICAHD has told the story of Atta Jaber, the Palestinian farmer, and his family, who have struggled to stay sumud/steadfast on their land in the Baq'a Valley near Hebron, one of the most fertile areas of Palestine. Atta was born in 1962 so for most of his life he has lived under Israel’s brutal military occupation and has not known what it is like to live in freedom.
Read the article about what happened on 3rd May.
View a one-minute video of the bulldozer at work. It was captured by ICAHD’s Jeff Halper who rushed from Jerusalem to Atta when he got the news that Israeli authorities had arrived. This is evidence that JCB bulldozers continue to be used in the Occupied Territory in violation of international law.
The Background
Atta & Rudina in 2019
For over thirty years, their entire married life, Atta and Rudina Jaber and their children have known nothing but oppression and cruelty from Israeli authorities and the extreme religious Jewish settlers from nearby Kiryat Arba in Hebron who covet their land. The valley in which Atta and his neighbours live, though arid, produces much of the West Bank's harvest of grapes and produce. Atta's small farm has been in the family since Ottoman times, but he has lost almost all of it to the settlement and to the busy highway 60 that connects the Israeli settlements of the southern West Bank to Jerusalem.
Besides losing their land and livelihood, the Jaber family has had its home demolished twice by the Israeli authorities, and Atta has been repeatedly jailed and beaten by the police. In December 2000, dozens of settlers invaded their home, evicted the family, spent a peaceful Sabbath in their home protected by the Israeli army and police, then burned the house on their way out and returned to Kiryat Arba undisturbed. In February 2018, the Israeli army destroyed what was left of Atta's farm, forbidding him to ever plant again on Israeli "state land."
The family has been afraid to leave its house empty even to go to a wedding or visit their married children out of fear that as soon as they are gone, settlers will again come to take it over. Indeed, every few months we report on an attack on the family and its home. At times, the attacks have been lethal. The settlers have trespassed noisily and provocatively through Atta's property, throwing stones at the house, shouting threats at the family, even saying that they will kill Atta. When settlers arrive to harass the family, Atta calls the Israeli police who occasionally arrive but always protect the settlers.
Settlers have begun the illegal construction of structures just above Atta's property, clearly indicating their intent to extend the settlement over his home and farm.
Atta has even testified before the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva and has briefed leaders of NGOs. Many international delegations have been welcomed into their home to hear their story and been served Rudina’s maklouba.
Atta Jaber and his family represent every level of resistance to Israeli occupation, though the strain on the family over the years has severely affected their health. Their steadfastness is firm, but now that they have small grandchildren in the home, they are genuinely scared.
We at ICAHD have supported the Jaber family (and their neighbours in the valley) over many years, and we have campaigned for them. We need your support at this harrowing time. Contact us if you want to become involved. It is important that your own political leaders know your concern for the Jaber family and for all Palestinians struggling for their rights.
Donate to Atta and his family.
ICAHD stands in solidarity with the Jaber family now as we have for decades - and materially as well. You are welcome to contribute to an Emergency Fund for him:
Donations may be made by bank transfer to: Bank - Lloyds Bank Bank account - ICAHD UK Account number - 61603263 Sort code - 30-99-50
For transfers from outside the UK, the following will be required: IBAN - GB23LOYD30995061603263 BIC / SWIFT code - LOYDGB21287
(Please include 'Atta Jaber' in reference)
Donations from the USA may be made via this link. Scroll down to the green box.
Explore how Atta Jaber’s resilience has been tested
Atta's Struggle to Remain Sumud
Many of you know Atta Jaber, his wife Rudeina and their children. Atta is a Palestinian farmer whose extended family has lived in the Baqa’a Valley near Hebron for centuries. In this, one of the most fertile areas of Palestine, the Jaber lands were filled with vineyards, fruit orchards and small farms. For generations Atta’s own family farmed their 400 dunams of land (100 acres), living in a spacious cave behind their current home, which they still use for storage and cooking.
The family’s struggle to remain sumud (steadfast) on their land began immediately after Israel’s conquest and occupation of the West Bank in 1967. Although their deeds go back to Ottoman times, the Israeli authorities expropriated 340 dunams of their land for the construction Kiryat Arba, a large settlement under which most of Atta’s field now literally lie. In 1981, the “Civil” Administration, Israel’s military government, declared the Jaber land Israeli “State Land, and has been chipping away at it ever since. The local section of highway #60, which bisects the West Bank and incorporates it into Israel, was built over more of the Jabers’ land, including a large petrol station serving Kiryat Arba drivers.
In the meantime, Atta's struggle goes on. He and his beloved donkey Samour continue plowing the single dunam – a quarter acre – that remains. Palestinian farmers never die; they remain sumud.
Article posted 22 May 2026
Read the full article
In the Field with Atta Jaber Jeff Halper's May 2026 update
This month finds Jeff Halper speaking from the Baq’a Valley across from the Kiryat Arba settlement, Hebron, where he is with his friend of nearly thirty years, Atta Jaber. They stand together on what was his last remaining strip of land now cleared of his grapevines because the Israeli highway is being expanded onto it.
Atta describes the pain in his heart. He is rooted to the land but now it is being taken by the state of Israel in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. He said that despite this loss, even if left with just one percent, they like other Palestinians, will not leave – this is their sumud. Because the sun rises each day, they have hope of a better day coming to Palestine.
Read the full article
"Rooted in the West Bank": The Atta Jaber Story
Rooted in the West Bank is a film that follows the struggle of Palestinian farmers for survival under Israeli government policies of drying out and burying their fertile Baka'a Valley under the expanding settlement-city of Kiryat Arba, IDF demolitions of their farms, wells, reservoirs, irrigation systems and homes, and extreme government-sanctioned settler violence. These are families ICAHD has been working with for the past 26 years, their shared human and political story covered throughout by filmmakers Bruno Sorrentino and Uri Fruchtman.
Article posted 4 November 2024
Read introduction and watch the film here
Extreme religious settlers from Kiryat Arba in Hebron have again been targeting the Atta Jaber family as they intend to make life so difficult for them that they leave their beloved home. On the evening of 13th December 2020 settlers arrived outside the front door and called for the family to leave because their home is going to be demolished to make way for a new Israeli settlement. Atta feared that this time the settlers would throw explosives because they have been used against other Palestinians that settlers seek to displace. Atta phoned the Israeli army begging it come to protect his family and this time the army arrived and escorted the settlers away.
The same day, settlers put up a one-room structure near to Atta’s home where it is intended that the new settlement of Nofei Hevron – View of Hebron – is established. As soon as they left, it was pushed over by the Jabers in an act of defiance. In a previous attempt a few years ago, settlers arrived and laid the foundation for the first home of this settlement. Both ICAHD’s Jeff Halper and Rabbi Arik Ascherman rushed to the site and pushed down the stones that had been laid and then they trampled through the wet concrete.
Read more here
On 6th September 2020, ICAHD’s Jeff Halper visited Atta Jaber on his farm in the southern West Bank. It was Atta’s birthday but instead of cake, Jeff was served something much better - maklouba.
Atta showed Jeff around the half acre narrow strip of farmland that runs along the main highway that he is allowed to till. Atta’s farmland with its terraces and established fruit trees located up the hill by his house was bulldozed by the Israeli authorities using JCB bulldozers a few years ago and now Atta is forbidden to farm "Israeli state land" - though he has a deed of ownership that goes back 100 years. In addition, Atta’s olive orchard has been fenced in by the Kiryat Arba settlement, to which he also has no access.
Article posted 11 November 2020
Read more »
In our September Actions Bulletin, we paid tribute to Atta Jaber, from the West Bank, who has known nothing but oppression and cruelty from the Israeli authorities as well as from extreme religious settlers. Atta’s resilience shines through as does his gentle determination to remain in his home and not be displaced
We were shocked and saddened to receive this news from Jeff Halper who reports on what happened on 25th September 2020.
Read more »
On Wednesday, 21 st February 2018, the bulldozers of Israel’s “Civil” Administration (which it calls its military government over 7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza) destroyed the farm of the Jaber family in the Baka Valley, near Hebron. Normally this would not be a notable event. Every day dozens of actions are taking against Palestinians, from demolishing their homes (52,000 homes and structures demolished in the Occupied Palestine Territory since 1967, the Jabar family’s home itself demolished twice and rebuilt by ICAHD) to uprooting olive orchards and fields to cutting irrigation and destroying wells to detaining children and, virtually every day, shooting a young person who dares to protest.
But Atta’s case is special. He and his family represent every level of resistance to Israeli occupation, from just trying to eke out a living from a tiny farm whose land Israel claims, to having a roof over their heads, to having to defend their home from nearby settlers (who once occupied and burned it), to being beaten and imprisoned by the Israeli army, to testifying before the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The Civil Administration claims the Jaber land is “state land,” although the family has lived on it for generations and has an Ottoman period deed. So, on Wednesday, by surprise, the bulldozers arrived, accompanied by soldiers, and destroyed all the crops in the family’s tiny fields, the terracing Atta had painstakingly done stone by stone for years and the cistern he had dug to collect rainwater (which Israeli authorities stated also belongs to the State). One hundred and fifty fruit trees were uprooted, including olives, figs, grapes and almonds, along with grape vines. Atta estimates the damage at $50,000.
Atta is ruined; his family, which barely eked out a living from its small plot of land, is destitute. ICAHD's Director Jeff Halper asked Atta what he’s going to do now: “Just keep on struggling,” he said.
Atta's story is told in this short video produced by ICAHD in 2016
Download this ICAHD flyer detailing the timeline of Israeli oppression against Atta Jaber and his family.