Sansana (Meitar Crossing), South Hebron Hills, Tuwani, Thu 2.8.12, Morning
Translator: Charles K.
08:45-11:00
Meitar crossing
No laborers crossing. It’s clean, well-organized, no food stands on the Palestinian side or their garbage on the Israeli side – because of Ramadan.
Hebron appears deserted, a few children in the streets carrying containers for soup.
Highway 317
Khirbet Tawani – We visited the village so the Italian volunteers from the “Operation Dove” organization could tell us about the upsetting reports they recently issued. The village lies below the Ma’on farm and repeatedly suffers harassment by the settlers. We came this time after a video was uploaded to the web showing settlers throwing rocks at children herding sheep.
Two young Italians manage the operation. They live in a shack similar to the ones in which the locals live, above the clinic. During the year they escort the children to school and in the summer they come when they’re summoned to escort the young shepherds going out with the flocks.
It turns out that recently, every Saturday (documentation exists from 21.7 and 28.7) the settlers come down, sometimes masked and sometimes not, to throw rocks at the shepherds. Members of Ta’ayush were present during one incident; they summoned the police and the army. When the army arrived it did nothing; the settlers rioted at will. One of the hooligans, dark-skinned with black curls, made sure to throw very large rocks.
The Italians also told us that a ten year old boy who’d gone out with the sheep was so frightened by the attack that he began hyperventilating, was unable to speak or call for help, and today, about a week later, he’s still frightened.
We translated for them what the settler hooligans said; they insisted that the grazing land is theirs. Interesting – their cows graze in the large, well-ventilated barns.
We don’t think more can be done other than distributing their videos to anyone willing to listen. Perhaps some day someone will punish the young hooligans.