Hebron, South Hebron Hills, Tue 25.1.11, Morning
Translator: Charles K.
it is 06:45 and all laborers have already crossed. Two buses arrived with relatives of prisoners. The families wait under the canopy.
Route 60
The usual automobile traffic on Route 60.
The army is keeping a low profile. No flying checkpoints anywhere and no delays.
Military jeeps pass by here and there. Few pupils on the side of the roads.
The only place we see soldiers checking IDs are at the sheep market at Tzomet HaKvasim and the entrance to the Hebron industrial area.
The observation balloon is aloft.
Hebron
A soldier in a booth at the entrance to Kiryat Arba watches the road.
They’ve almost finished paving Derekh Habanim (litterally: the path of the sons). By next week there may be landscaping. The Nofei Mamreh neighborhood also looks ready for occupancy.
Hebron still slumbers. Semester break began today and only some schools have classes. Hardly anyone on the street. All the checkpoints are quiet. Nor are there any CPT people around.
Givati soldiers have also taken up positions at Gross Square and at the entrance to the Jewish quarter. The Cave of the Patriarchs area is also deserted and quiet.
We went to our friends who had bought on our behalf gas heaters and other equipment to heat Huda’s kindergarten and drove to Eid at Umm el Hir so he could bring us to Hisham al Daraj, to the kindergarten.
Umm el Hir: No-man's people
Tu B’Shvat celebrations have been going on since Saturday. Settler from Carmel came down to the Palestinians’ grazing lands, tried to chase people away and planted trees. Volunteers from abroad were hit by the settlers on Saturday.
People from Ta’ayush have been coming since Sunday to help, and today, like every day since then, there were confrontations between the shepherds coming down to their fields and the settlers trying to expand their domain by planting trees and “to get rid of the people from Umm El Hir.” And the army? The border police? They stand off the side without intervening. The only ones getting hurt are Arabs – so who cares??
There an uproar down in the wadi. We have no way of getting there and Eid promises that everything’s under control, that he has help.
We decided, together with Huda, to bring the heater to the kindergarten tomorrow.