Immatin, 'Izbet at Tabib, Nabi Elias, Far'ata

Nabi Elias - Sarah and Dafna met with a group of women for the knitting and embroidery lesson. The women showed what they had made and said that they would like to sell them. One of the participants said that she would bring an example of traditional embroidery to the next lesson.

Sarah and Dafna report: We continued with the work of knitting socks and slippers from wool as we have been doing since Rivka left. We hope to finish the project in two weeks time and then  to hold a party . (We are looking for a video photographer to photograph this party and then we could put it on u-tube).

Maybe we can also sell some of the crafts.

Immatin- Nurit reports. We arrived at 10.30 and 7 women were sitting in a circle. The same women as had come for the previous lesson.  They keep it up and are very interested to learn. They use what they have learned from us in previous lesson. We learned new sentences and repeated the numbers from 1 to 100 and on the letters a, b, y, t and l. We gave out papers with exercises, reading and they read and understand the first sentences.

At about 12 we left for Nabi Elias. When we left the women were still sitting in a half circle as if they were continuing the lesson. They asked that the lesson be longer. There is a problem as to the day and the hour.

Nirit and Nadim drove to Far'at. We met with  the villager whose son’s house at the north eastern side of the village is near to Gilad's ranch. He decribed to us how the settlers come in to his agricultural fields and interfere with the work. Burning olive trees and stealing fruit. 

This attack is repeated weekly.

The settlers of Gilad's ranch burned his two cars and also 40 olive trees. They  pulled out the young trees of the ground and left the sign of the magen davied on the fence of the house. 

The family had made a complaint at the policestation but nothing had been done about it. The villagers had given the police the filmed cassette of the attack but did not save the document  in the family’s computer and the police returned it to the villagers after they had deleted the contents. He told us that the soldiers saw the settlers going down with small tractors at the time of the incendiary action. The soldiers came in an army jeep and asked the villagers “Is everything alright?” while they saw that the field was ablaze and then drove off.The villagers asked the soldiers to catch the settlers but the soldiers said that this is not 

part of their job. They lied and reported to 

the captain who then arrived that they had 

not seen the tractors.

A few days ago they got a phone call from

the Azariah police station (next to Ramallah) who asked them to come to make a complaint and also to bring the cassette which of course had been deleted of its content.  The fact that the family has been summoned to a police station next to Ramallah has been evidently done to harass them and to complicate any handling of the complaint as for the family to get to this station they have to get a permit to pass through.  Etc.

Besides that we were told that they had had problems getting a permit for the olive harvest this year. They got a permit for a single day in which to harvest 30 dunam at a place under Havat Gilad. The permit was received a month after the request and during this time the settlers had stolen  half of the amount of the olives and also damaged part of the streets by breaking down the branches was received a month after the request and during this time the settlers had stolen. 

They have a very bad feeling about all this and are frustrated because they have no protection from the Israeli forces nor from the Palestinian authority. Their property is open  season  to all and there is no one to compensate them for damages.

IZbit Tabib.  On the way back we passed the village. The army blocked the entrance/exit and the inhabitants can only enter/exit the village through Azzun, it addes about 10 kilometer to 

 the journey to Qalqiliya.