South Hebron

South Hebron Tuesday morning, February 1, 2005 Watchers: Hagit B., Leah Sh. (reporting) Guests: Tamar, Ziv. Today we focused on road 317, 07:00-10:30.Hirbat Tawani: 6 teachers walk to school (4 classes only) about 9kms every day, from Yatta, because cars are barred from crossing road 317. We took down names, and will try to arrange for them to have a permit to cross by car. From the east, the daily surrealistic sight: 12 kids appear on the horizon on the mountaintop, walking to school with the escort of a police jeep. These are Umm Taba kids who need protection from physical attacks by the Jewish bullies living in the wood (the Tor family and the wild youth along with them, well known to settlers but no one stops them). In the school yard, boulders are in place, ready for paving the wadi for safe passage in winter, but locals afraid to complete these works as they have no written permit as yet. We are invited for tea. A teacher rings the old hand-bell and gathers the pupils for some stretching exercises and reciting of the first sura of the Koran plus the Palestinian national anthem. We meet three Italian volunteers (actually, German speakers from the Tyrol) from Operation Dove, living in the village.To the north, shortly before Elazar Junction, we take the dirt road that enters the lands of Halat a-Dar (Visualize the triangle between road 60 in the west, from the Sheep Junction to Yatta, and the settlement Pnei Hever east of road 317) which are confiscated these days. Some landowners (we saw documents from 1926), residents of [Arab] East Jerusalem, managed to stop the bulldozers with a court order, and indeed the bulldozers are gone. However, a settler in a huge 4WD vehicle marked `Kiyat Arba / Hebron` zoomed by - what is he doing lording over that area? Ziv Junction: the gate closes off the side road at night and should be opened every morning, but it is still locked, with vehicles stuck on both sides. We called several times trying to get them to open the gate. Further north: a big truck, escorted by a UN vehicle, delivers basic foodstuffs - sacks of flour, sugar, hummous beans, jars of oil - all marked UNRWA. Judging by their clothing, the refugees carrying away the staples on their backs or on donkeys were the poorest of the poor. A representative of some aid organization passing by explains that this is periodic delivery of incentives of a special project of land reclamation.On our way back, where a road forks out to the east, on the northern fence of the settlement Karmel, a cluster of security vehicles - Border Police, and regular police. The “security threat” is a minibus of volunteers from Rabbis for Human Rights, with Ezra from Tayush in another vehicle, on their way to replace recently uprooted 4-year old trees, near the village Ma`in. We join the consultation with the higher ranks, and the bottom line is that they are allowed to pursue their trip but not allowed to plant anywhere, as planting requires a special permit. Note that the area is full of recent planting, in big barrels, by settlers -- `Judaizing` more land with these marks … Do they have those special permits? The volunteers decide to go south and try elsewhere, but they are escorted with the entire convoy of security vehicles.The security priorities of the State of Israel are very interesting indeed…: for our `dessert` we meet frustrated Border Police soldiers, one of them a Bedouin from the Galilee, at the juction towards Arad south of Sussia. They have orders to stop every Israeli Bedouin vehicle and check if the vehicle is stolen and/or is transporting stolen goods. The checking by wireless takes forever. One truck driver yells that he had been held down there for two hours and was allowed to go on only when we arrived. At least he felt confident enough, as an Israeli citizen, to yell at the soldiers.