Tour of villages. Zeita, Zeita Jamma'in, Habala, Kifl Haris, Hares, Huwwara

Translation:  Suzanne O.

Kifl Haris, 'Tomb of Calev son of Yefune':

In the courtyard of the tomb we saw a shattered tombstone, one of the residents told us that it is the grave of someone who was buried in 2008 and that the stone was shattered by settlers.

We met with the owner of the clothes shop in Kifl Haris and asked him to set up a meeting with a labourer or labourers who work in the settlement industries and who earn a meagre wage (so that we can check out the possibility of making a complaint).  He will try to organise it for our next visit.

Zeita Jamma'in:

We talked to employees of the village council who told us that they solve the problem of the boars by setting out poison, a bad ecological solution but they do not have any alternative as they are not allowed to use guns.  The civil administration does not help them because they are in Area B.

They again complained that the barrier has been opened for pedestrians only and the barrier for tractors is still in place so they have to carry sacks of olives and everything else on their shoulders or on donkeys.

There was a medium yield of olives this year, there were no problems from the settlers but in the groves near the settlement Tapuach there was damage to the trees and olives were stolen.

Again one of the residents complained to us about the problems caused to his herd by settlers, the Yesh Din people have still not visited him, they apologised and promised to come soon.

Huwwara roadblock:

We stood at a fair distance from the roadblock but suddenly three armed soldiers rushed over and demanded that we leave, the reason: we are frightening them because they don't know what types like us (i.e.: left wingers) are likely to do, perhaps we might even attack them.  We stayed where we were and then they threatened to call the police: we stayed on for a few minutes and then left because we hadn't meant to stay there long anyway.  The difficulty of the incident was the hate in the soldiers' eyes.

We continued to drive along the Burin/Yitzhar road; there was quite heavy military traffic along the way.  At the turning from Huwwara there was a military jeep parked and at the entrance toGilad Farm there was a spot roadblock.

Habala:

We met a resident who detailed the hardships of the residents:  the trouble they have in crossing roadblocks, the difficulty in working their land and particularly the damage caused to their groves while laying roads and putting up the fences, Qalqiliya which was known as a green town has become a concrete town and recently the army has started to destroy wells belonging to Palestinians.

This was a sorry end to an unhappy tour.