Palestinian villagers reported as living in caves and nearby tents are considered as belonging to a unique southern Hebron cave-dwelling culture present in the area since the early 19th century.

While some of the satellites became permanent villages with communities of 100s, others remained temporary settlements which served shepherds and fallāḥīn (farmers) for several months every year.

[4] They were known for a special kind of cheese produced in their caves,[22] and lived by harvesting olives, herding sheep, growing crops, and beekeeping.

[24] After coming under Israeli civil authority in 1982, an Israel settlement planner, Plia Albeck, examined the area of Susiya, the synagogue and the Palestinian village built on and around it, and finding it legally difficult to advance Jewish settlement, wrote: “The [ancient] synagogue is located in an area that is known as the lands of Khirbet Susya, and around an Arab village between the ancient ruins.

Therefore the area proximal to the [ancient] synagogue is in all regards privately owned.”[25]In June 1986, Israel expropriated the Palestinian village's residential ground for an archeological site, evicting about 25 families.

[15] The expelled Susyans settled in caves and tin shacks nearby, on their agricultural lands[14] at a site now called Rujum al-Hamri,[26] to restart their lives.

[17][18][27] The Israeli government official stance on the matter says: “There was no historic Palestinian village at the archaeological site there; that the village consists of only a few seasonal residences for a few families; and the land is necessary for the continuation of archaeological work.”[28][29] According to Regavim, an NGO which petitioned the Supreme Court to execute the demolition orders at Khirbet susya,[30] the place was used as grazing area and olive agricalture seasonally before 1986.

[36] In July 2015 it was published that according to an internal document of findings by the Israeli Civil Administration officer Moshe Meiri, the claim to ownership of the land appears to be grounded on a valid Ottoman period title, dating back to 1881, in the possession of the Jabor family.

[38] According to David Shulman, Ta'ayush activist, the second expulsion took place in 1990, when Rujum al-Hamri's inhabitants were loaded onto trucks by the IDF and dumped at the Zif Junction, 15 kilometers northwards[18] near a roadside at the edge of a desert.

[17] Palestinian residents (2012) pay 25 NIS per cubic meter water brought in by tanks, which is 5 times the cost to the nearby Israeli settlement.

[14][18] On 3 July 2001, the Israeli army demolished dozens of homes in Susya and contiguous Palestinian villages, and bulldozed their cisterns, many ancient, built for gathering rainwater, and then filled them with gravel and cement to hinder their reuse.

[14] In 2006, structures without a permit were demolished illegally on the orders of a low-ranking officer, and the demolition was strongly criticized 3 years later by the High Court of Israel.

[citation needed] In September 2008 the Israeli army informed the Palestinians at Susya that a further 150 dunums (15 hectares), where 13 remaining rainwater cisterns are located, would be a "closed military area" to which they were denied access.

They have a swimming pool and their lush irrigated vineyards, herb farms and lawns – verdant even at the height of the dry season – stand in stark contrast to the parched and arid Palestinian villages on their doorstep.

[44] David Dean Shulman described the reality he observed in 2008: Susya: where thirteen impoverished families are clinging tenaciously, but probably hopelessly, to the dry hilltop and the few fields that are all that remain of their vast ancestral lands.

[16] According to B'tselem, the Palestinians that remain in the area live in tents[45] on a small rocky hill between the settlement and the archeological park which is located within walking distance.

'[42]While the Israeli settlement has mains power and piped water from Israel, the Palestinians depend on solar panels and wind turbine energy made possible by a Palestinian/Israeli NGO – Comet - and on wells.

[49] This project has been shortlisted for the BBC World Challenge which highlighted the involvement of two Israeli physicists, Elad Orian and Noam Dotan.

[53] Of the 120 complaints registered with Israeli police in Hebron by Palestinians of Susya, regarding alleged attacks, threats, incursions, and property damage wrought by settlers down to 2013, upwards of 95% have been dismissed, without charges being laid.

[60] On June 14 an Israeli court issued 6 demolition orders covering 50 buildings including tent dwellings, ramshackle huts, sheep pens, latrines, water cisterns, a wind-and-sun powered turbine, and the German-funded solar panels in most of the Palestinian village of Susya.

[17] On the 26th of June, 2013, the Israeli Civil Administration, a military body, raided Palestinian Susya and handed out 40 demolition orders for many structures, tents, hothouses, a water well and a solar panel, established on humanitarian grounds by the European Union.

On 29 August 2012 the IDF destroyed a sheepfold and two tents, one a dwelling and the other for storage, donated to the villagers of Palestinian Susya by the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

[63] A delegation of diplomats from 28 European countries visited Susya in June and urged Israel not to evict its 300 Palestinian residents, a move that would endanger in their view the two-state solution.

The EU funded the construction of buildings in Area C which is under interim Israeli jurisdiction, built without permits and which cost tens of millions of Euros.

A spokesman said it was justified on humanitarian grounds while Ari Briggs, International Director of Regavim, said the project is a 'Trojan horse' with political aims.