Eliyahu Crossing, Shomron Crossing, Wed 4.8.10, Afternoon

15:55   Shomron Crossing:                                                                                                                                  We started out rather late in order not to travel in the heat of midday. On the other hand, we met up with a lot of traffic in the late afternoon.

16:00  to 18:30                                                                                                                                                     We toured the area west of Nablus. Most of the time we were in the area between TulKarem and Qalqiliya. We got a good picture of what the Palestinian farmers go through to get to their fields and back home again.

We passed through the village Al Funduq and continued north passing the villages Hajja and Bakat at Hatab. We could see Kedumim spread across many hills to our right.
We passed through the villages Kur and Kafr Sur.

We arrived at the village Kafr Jammal. There we were served juice and coffee at the home of relatives of Nadim's mother's family, who were happy to receive us. We spoke with some of the young people who are studying in high school and are planning to continue to the university.

From Kafr Jammal we went through the fields to get to the "farmers' gate" of the village of Falamiya,
in order to leave the territories enclosed by the barrier. The gate is supposed to be open until 18:00. Even though we arrived before 18:00 we found the gate locked.
We drove back over bumpy paths through the fields to get to the "farmers' gate" of Jayyus.
Soldiers were on guard there and the gate was open but they would not let us through the gate.
The patrol road along the fence looked very good to us after travelling over the bumpy paths, but as the soldier said, "Even my father I wouldn't allow to drive on this road." 
He sent us back, to go into Jayyus and from there to road 55.

We passed the Eliyahu Crossing back into Israel at 18:30.