Israeli restrictions have forced the shepherd’s flock off much of its grazing land, he said. A drought has sent the price of replacement fodder skyrocketing and the Palestinian economic crisis has crushed demand for his sheep.
The proud Bedouin has been forced to sell off most of his animals at fire sale prices and take out devastating loans to feed those that remain. In February, the Israeli army knocked down the small hut that served as his family’s home.
While many Palestinians suffered as their economy tanked over the past six years, few have been hit as hard as the 2,500 Bedouin herders living in tiny villages across the rocky hills of the southeastern West Bank, say aid workers.
The traditional nomads come from relatively powerless families, giving them little clout in competing for coveted government jobs. Their poor education makes them unqualified for all but the most menial labour, and the economy makes those jobs impossible to come by.
The Bedouin had always been able to scrape by, tending their herds, selling cheese and the occasional sheep for slaughter. But that safety net is vanishing.
"They are in a particularly desperate situation," said David Shearer, head of the local UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. "If this sort of situation continues, hundreds of years of being shepherds in this area may stop in the months ahead."
Their predicament is further complicated by their location on a piece of territory left under full Israeli control by past peace agreements. Israel rarely grants growing families authorization to build new homes and demolishes any they build illegally.
Hathaleen, 61, is the leader of the tiny village of Mummghar, which lies in the shadow of the Israeli settlement of Carmel. Though Mummghar’s 150 residents have no electricity or running water, a power line stretches overhead, bringing electricity from Carmel to the settlement’s nearby chicken coops.
Hathaleen began building his flock decades ago, starting with a dozen or so sheep given to him by his father. Eventually his flock grew to 500 sheep, providing him enough income to feed him, his two wives and the 17 of his 22 children who still live at home, and also provide them with some of the better things in life.
"My children were not missing anything. They got everything," he said, as he sat on a ratty mattress on the dirt floor of a large meeting tent stitched together from old Israeli mail bags and ripped squares of tarp. A small stove provided warmth against the cold winter wind.
His sheep used to roam the nearby hills, grazing off the land for as long as nine months of the year, he said.
Then a decade ago, Israeli authorities began closing off much of that area, saying it was part of the settlement, he said. More land was later sealed off as a military zone, he said.
When fighting broke out between the Palestinians and Israel in 2000, restrictions grew even tighter, giving him far less space to graze his herd and forcing him to buy more fodder. He began to sell some of his flock and take out loans to cover his rising expenses, he said.
The drought last year hit his business hard. What little grazing land was left grew desiccated and useless. He was forced to buy a year’s supply of fodder, just when the sharp rise in demand nearly doubled the price of animal feed.
Compounding the disaster, the Palestinian economy went into freefall as the West slapped an economic boycott on the government after Hamas militants won parliamentary elections last year. Few Palestinians could afford meat, and the market price of sheep - Hathaleen’s only real asset - collapsed, falling from $142 for a small sheep to about half that price, he said.
"The sheep are costing me more than they are worth," he said.
Hathaleen’s once proud flock of 500 is down to about 100, he said. While he gets some food aid from the United Nations, he is still forced to sell between five and 10 sheep a month to help feed his family and service the massive debt of more than US$25,000 he built up trying to hold on to his flock, he said.
Capt. Zidki Maman, spokesman for the army office in charge of the West Bank, said the Bedouin were only prevented from grazing their sheep in live fire zones, but shepherds and international aid groups said that includes wide swaths of the region.
On a recent winter day, Hathaleen showed off the home where he lived with his wives and 17 of his children. The small hut had a mud floor, walls of piled rocks and a roof of tin held down by large stones to keep it from blowing away.
A few days later, Israeli bulldozers destroyed the home, as well as most of the other collection of corrugated tin shacks and stone huts in the village. Hathaleen, who owns the land and has lived there for more than 40 years, was forced to move his family into tents donated by aid groups, he said.
Maman said many of the Bedouin homes in the area were illegally built and were knocked down only after appeals had been exhausted.
"They are illegal buildings and that is why we are working against them," he said.
Bedouin in other nearby villages are suffering as well.
Mohammed Awad Hathaleen, 44, lives in the tiny village of Hathaleen, which is named after the Bedouin clan that populates the area. He doesn’t have any sheep left.
He bought his 50-strong flock a few years ago on credit, hoping to supplement the money he made from unskilled jobs he did in Israel for six or seven months a year.
When the violence erupted in 2000, he was barred from Israel, and eventually had to take out more loans to feed his sheep. After selling his entire flock, he is left with nothing but his debt of more than $4,000.
Now he is forced to scavenge for scrap metal discarded from nearby army bases to feed his seven children, but the supply is drying up.
"There are thousands of people like me, so now it is hard to find any metal," he said.
Shuab al Hathaleen said he has enough sheep to last him for maybe another year.
After that, he will have to resort to what Bedouins have done for centuries, he said - rustle sheep from wealthier neighbors.