Hebron, Sansana (Meitar Crossing), South Hebron Hills

Guest:  Wilson, from South Africa

Translator:  Charles K.

07:30 – 11:30

Meitar crossing

Many cars on the Palestinian side of the checkpoint.  There are no more laborers at this hour.

Southern Hebron hills

A convoy of trucks transporting prefabricated buildings drives along the road below Athniel.  From where?  To where?  We don’t know, and couldn’t follow them.

Many military forces at the checkpoint below Beit Haggai – various vehicles and also female soldiers.  Targets have been erected for a firing range in an adjacent field.

Many soldiers run among the buildings in the area of the southern entrance to Hebron.

We weren’t able to approach, but it seemed to me like one of the exercises that’s been described recently:  the army has been conducting exercises in the midst of the Palestinian population.  They were no longer there when we returned, but there were many soldiers in the cabbage fields at the Dura/Al Fawwar junction.

Hebron

Border Police soldiers detain a group of youths (who appear to be students) returning from the Cave of the Patriarchs.

A., our acquaintance, says that a particular soldier always creates problems.  And in fact we saw a young man, a relative of his, who works in his shop, whom the soldier thought had come too close to the Palestinian entrance to the site, rudely told to move away.

Meanwhile, more and more groups of pilgrims come and go as if everything was normal, and don’t seem to understand what they’re seeing.