South Hebron

South HebronWednesday morning, 8 February 2005 Observers: Leah Y., Hagit B, Zafrira A. [reporting in English]Left Tel Shoket at 6.50, returned at 9.55This mornings news was full of a summary of the speech that will be given by [Israeli PM] Sharon at the Sharm al Sheik conference stating, "What is important are actions and not words". We left Tel Shoket with the hope that this would be seen in the area, although the process is still in its early days.The weather was unbearably cold, most of the road was foggy with visibility at times about 30 M. and an icy rain poured down at intervals. SANSANA CHECKPOINT. Friendly soldiers who let us through with a wave. One of them took a lift from us to a point further along the road.SAMOA entrance. The usual earthworks, and road blocked to Rd 60. A bus was parked on the side. We stopped to ask the driver what the problem was. He was waiting for a group of students on their way to the university in Hebron. Normally the drive from Es Samoa would take 15 minutes, but because the road is blocked, the students take one bus to the blockage and then change to his bus. (We observed this taking place.) He then drives to Dahariya– he has permission to cross the apartheid road [Rd 60, reserved for settlers’ traffic], but not to drive on it – and then makes the round trip which takes over an hour. This is not the end of the story. Two to three times a week, a humvee stops the bus and all the passengers’ identity cards are checked. This can take up to half an hour. All this is to protect the settlements of Beth Haggai, Otniel and Shama, that should not have been there in the first place.DURA - AL FAWWAR. Some traffic. The pillbox is manned and the humvee and jeep are ready to pounce.SHEEP’S CROSSING. The earthworks are still in place. Pedestrians from Yatta slip and slide in the mud to cross over them on their way to Hebron. Only the agile can manage - I myself was unable to cross. No army present. Inside the area Israeli bulldozers have been flattening an area for "take over" that belongs to the three villages forming a triangle. The villagers have organised an appeal for a legal stop to this takeover.SHIUCH At 7.50, the schoolgirls are dodging the traffic on Rd 60 to cross to the girls’ school in Hebron. We visited the headmistress, who was rather hostile and sarcastic about the peace process and release of prisoners. According to her, these are prisoners who would in any case have completed their sentence within the next few months. True or not, she was obviously expressing the opinion of many of the Palestinians. Her office was depressingly decorated with quotations from the Koran and at least three pictures of Arafat. The girls that we passed were friendly and greeted us in Arabic and English.EAST HALHUL Heavy fog. No traffic and no visibilityHALHUL-HEBRON BRIDGE Heavy fog but we could see some traffic crossing. The soldiers were very tense because of the limited visibility and the reiteration the last few days of the possibility of terrorist attacks. Road 317. No traffic, but earthworks remain. Entrance to Yatta is open. Entrance to the Arad road is manned and a transit [multipassenger taxi-van] is being checked. A few hundred metres along the road we came across a group of 8 men standing in the icy wind, while a jeep with soldiers were checking their IDs. We invited them into our transit and heard their story. They said that they had already been waiting for nearly an hour for the return of their IDs. The soldiers claimed it was only 20 minutes. It appears that these men are the teaching staff of one of the villages on the other side of the road and they live in East Samoa They drive as far as the earthworks and cross on foot to the Arad checkpoint and from there it’s three km to the school. They are stopped every day to be checked. Today they were stopped by the jeep. We waited with them until all the IDs were cleared. 8 cards took half an hour. Comment: These teachers must be well known by this time. Why not a cursory glance at their IDs, as we have seen at some other checkpoints?We made a note of the jeep number and Hagit called the DCO [District Coordination Office; the IDF Civil Adminstration bureau that issues passage permits] and the emergency unit of the army to deal with the situation. She also gave the teachers her tel number and asked them to call if they are stopped again tomorrow. By the time the procedure was completed, the teachers decided that there was no point in going on to the school as the children would have left anyway.We returned to Tel Shocket and home to defrost feet and hands.