Bethlehem, Etzion DCL, Nuaman, Sheikh Saed, Mon 11.1.10, Afternoon

From 12:30 till 3:30 PM.

Nuaman, Al Aroub, Etzion DCL and Sheikh Saed

We hadn’t been to Nuaman for a long time and after discussing the matterwith Tamar A. she suggested we call Efrat B.-Z. of Ta’ayush who is involved inthe village. She told us to talk to Youssef Darawi. However, the latter was atwork and could only see us on Friday-mornings. We were not allowed to enter thevillage, but finally the commander of the Mazmoriya CP agreed to consult hiscommanders and after a short wait, we were allowed to enter. The playground atthe entrance constructed by Ta’ayush looks lovely. Fortunately the dangerousdeep hole has been fenced in and will no longer constitute a safety hazard. Wedidn’t meet anyone and continued without thinking towards Etzion and thensouthward. The watchtowers in Al Aroub have been equipped with specialobservation covers and it was hard to discover how exactly they work. We didn’tsee any soldiers. At the Etzion roundabout and hitchhiking points a number ofsoldiers were stationed.

At the DCL two women and a man were waiting. They said that the othershad left, because they had been told that the ‘machine’ was broken and thatthey should return tomorrow. However, after a little while the soldier asked uspolitely whether we could find out why the waiting Palestinians had come. Afterwe told him he asked them (again very politely) to come in (one by one) andthen a fourth person entered too. Only one younger man, a student, was stillwaiting since the morning for his appointment with the captain of the Security.Then our colleagues whose Bethlehemstint had just begun walked in and we realized that we had come to the wrong‘beat’. They tried to call Danny without success to speed up the procedure withthe Security and we left.

In Sheikh Saed a lot of the garbage has been covered by sand, but theCP is active as usual and apparently despite rumors, to which we ourselves mayhave contributed, it has not been abolished.