WEST BANK: The 120-strong Hamdan clan lives in caves in the hills south of Hebron, surviving on herding sheep and very basic farming

On a rocky hill to the south of the West Bank city of Hebron, members of an extended Palestinian family carry on with their traditional way of life, dwelling in caves and surviving on the fruits of the earth. They call the "village" - formed of a series of caves buried in a hillside - Mghaneh. A community of 120 members of the Hamdan clan live in the ancient caves. 73-year-old Abu Ali Hamdan shares a cave with his wife Sarah, two of his three children and their grandchildren, making a total of 11 inhabitants living in one cave. The family gathers to drink tea as Abu Ali tells them stories concerning a donkey in a neighbouring village. The family members, old and young, listen with smiles that give the impression that this is not the first time they have heard the story. The children of Mghaneh normally walk for five kilometres every day to attend school in a nearby village, but are home today to prepare for exams. Abu Ali is proud of his lifestyle and says cave dwelling is the best way to live. "Our ancestors lived here so did our fathers and now we are here and God willing we will be buried here," Abu Ali said. Heating some water over a small wood fire that fills the cave with smoke, Sarah takes charge of preparing food and drink for the day. "In the evening we prepare the (bread) dough and bake it in the morning. In the daytime in the afternoon we start cooking the food for dinner and in the morning we prepare whatever is available," Sarah explained. Sarah uses a traditional clay and stone "Taboon" oven to bake bread in a pile of hot ashes that are dusted off before the bread is served. At the bottom of the hill, rainwater is collected in a well used for livestock. Drinking water is bought from nearby towns and brought to Mghaneh on donkeys. Farming and sheep herding is the source of life for residents of Mghaneh. Donkeys are their only means of transport to and from the rocky village. Fresh meat, milk, wool and yogurt are some of the goods made and used for survival in Mghaneh. A sheep is slaughtered for food and sent off to a cave with a 'kitchen' to prepare food for members of the community. The ancient village of Mghaneh stands in stark contrast to three new Jewish settlements erected on the nearby hills complete with running water, gas, electricity and a modern sewage system. The Palestinian resident of Mghaneh are denied permission to build by Israeli authorities who have classified that area as "historical," yet Mghaneh is in the middle of a triangle of Jewish settlements built on the same "historical" land. Strangely enough, Mghaneh residents did not object to the building of part of the infamous Israeli separation barrier near their village. It annexes some of their land, but it also keeps the Jewish settlers, who often used to harass them, away. Clothes lines are erected amongst rocks, caves and piles of dry shrubs which are collected for firewood. The barrier might keep the settlers away, but it has also cut off Mghaneh from the nearby forest on which the cave dwellers traditionally relied for firewood. Once a year, one Mghaneh resident is allowed to go to the nearby Jewish settlements with a donkey cart to pick up shrubs and waste from beneath the settlers' trees. The lamb slaughtered earlier is now cooking over a wood fire in Um Issa's "kitchen." Chunks of dried cooking yogurt are squeezed and dissolved in water by hand in a traditional pot. Um Issa's daughter-in-law, Yusra, is sifting the flour and preparing the dough for the paper-thin bread which is baked on a large dome-shaped pan placed over a wood fire. A neighbour helps the two women tidy up after cooking. Clothes and blankets hang on lines, demarcating the various "rooms" in the cave. Many caves have a space designated for livestock for times when the animals must be brought in due to bad weather. In the summer months, the cave dwellers sleep outdoors. "We sleep here when its cold and raining, in the summer we go outside and sleep outside. We are afraid of snakes and other things that come inside (in the summer) and can sting or bite," Abu Yousef explains. A satellite dish is installed outside the community tent, were the men spend their leisure time and watch a car battery-operated television. The air is continuously filled with the aroma of hand-ground coffee kept boiling throughout the day on a low wooden fire. Yet visitors must be content for a while to enjoying the scent of the coffee, for Mghaneh residents traditionally offer coffee to visitors only when they are ready to leave. The contrast between the simple traditional lifestyle of Mghaneh cave dwellers who blend into nature and that of their right-wing Israeli settler neighbours is testimony to how strangely diverse the area has become.

ITN Source | January 19, 2007

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