South Hebron Hills, Wed 17.4.13, Morning
Translator: Charles K.
The weather is a little bleak. There are only the two of us – M.,the driver and I… So we kept it short and drove toward Hebron…
There were no more laborers at the Meitar crossing and very few vehicles on the road… Wind and fog, as if it were winter…
A little before the Dura alFawwar junction there’s a right turn to Negohot. The names of the Arab villages along Highway 3265 don’t appear.
We see a bus from the Southern Hebron Hills regional council driving with a military escort and decide to follow…
We drive along the road until we reach Negohot A, where 40 families live. A lone soldier from a platoon leader’s course who’s assigned to guard settlements is seated in the booth at the gate. He can’t decide on his own whether to allow us entry; he must ask the settlement’s security coordinator – it’s clear who’s in charge here...the settlers, not the IDF. The security coordinator – Shammai – arrives. He asks me what we’re doing here; I tell him I want to know how many families live here. He hesitates momentarily and I ask whether the number of families is a state secret… He has no choice – 40, he says. And at Nagohot B, I ask? Five, he says…also with a guard… And what about Nagohot C? You’re invited to build it, he replies…
On our way back we see construction continuing at Nagohot… The promise to Obama that construction will be only in the large settlement blocs is already being violated.