Hebron, South Hebron Hills, Mon 18.2.13, Morning
Translator: Charles K.
The occupation routine
Meitar crossing
There are no laborers when we go through. Four buses with relatives of prisoners stand in the parking lot. Construction of the back-to-back truck crossing continues at full swing. The parking lot on the Palestinian side is completely full.
Route 60
The observation balloon floats over Beit Haggai. The soldiers from the pillboxes at Dura al Fawwar and the Kvasim junction are out on the road but aren’t stopping anyone. Police at the Kvasim junction stop us to see our papers – the policeman likes my sunglasses. Maybe that’s why they didn’t detain us very long. A water pipe is being laid near the village of Deir Razah.
Hebron
A path is being blazed to Mitzpeh Avihai (the illegal outpost cleared more than once by the army) from the road between the gas station and Kiryat Arba. A step toward legitimizing it? Perhaps Orit Struck, the new Knesset member, has the answer.
Four border police soldiers bar the entrance to the worshippers route, detaining passersby. We walk along the renovated sections of the route and enter the home of a family which lives there. They don’t pay rent and have no money – they’re the only ones willing to live there. We take some photographs showing how the apartheid wall appears through their window.
Soldiers in the Avraham Avinu neighborhood are resting. Children in Tel Rumeida walking home from the market with bags of purchases are detained. Such is life.
It’s a lovely day. Anemones blossom in the olive grove above the upper parking lot. Women waiting for the clinic to open greet us; they say nothing’s new.