In the 1830’s, poverty-stricken Palestinian families left their villages in the South Hebron region and purchased land up to 20km on the outskirts. The families lived in the numerous and spacious caves spread throughout the area and made their living from the surrounding hills and fields (today the southernmost part of the West Bank). In the generations that followed, these families developed a unique culture and way of life based on their sheep herding, agriculture and cave dwelling. The Israeli occupation led to expropriate the Palestinian farmers’ land due to the establishment of military bases, the declaration of certain areas as “firing zones� and closed military zones. From the early 1980’s the Israeli government confiscated more land as it began building settlements in the area.
In the early 1980’s, the cave-dwelling Palestinian community of Susiya (about 60 families) was concentrated next to an archaeological site containing Byzantine, Roman and Hellenistic ruins and an ancient Jewish synagogue from the second temple period.
