Sansana, South Hebron Hills, Sun 17.8.08, Morning

06:45 – 10:30

Sansana-Meitar PC
It is seven o’clock and still many workers line up. We were told that only 2 of 4 checking posts are open and that inspections came to a halt after six o’clock, just after the buses of family members of prisoners arrived.  Shortly after our arrival the checking resumed and the workers went through.
The workers expressed their worry about the new machine that has been installed lately and is placed in a special room.  It is called: A System for Human Inspection. Two inspection installations are at work now; at the entrance the workers are checked through the regular magnometer, and near the exit is the room of this radiating one. They fear for their health, naturally. Yehuda, the man in charge, spoke to us, and explained that this machine is installed in some airports in the USA and that it is safe, and that the Ministry of Environmental Quality had no objections. Also, people are not daily searched there. The purpose for this additional system is for security purpose, to detect, for example, that a worker does not carry a revolver under his arm!
A worker commented and said that scientific research is putting so much effort in preventing cancer, and here they put a machine that increases the risk.
It is important to find out what kind of machine it is and whether it has been improved by the health authorities. The crucial question is why have the workers, who go through numerous checking have to be put under another radiating machine.

Road 60 and 356
There was quite Palestinian traffic on the roads and almost no military traffic.
The boulders, the concrete obstacles, the dirt mounds still litter the sides of the roads.
At the Sheep Junction the road was open to cars, but the pedestrian short cut was blocked. The entrance to Bani Naim is blocked by boulders. The vineyard land of the convicted Jewish terrorist, Menahem livni nearby the village is protected by a strong yellow fence, like the fences of military camps. Till the land there is a proper coated road and from there on a dirt road. 

The above pictures demonstrate the blocked entrance to Bani Naim and the military fence that protect Livni’s lands.

On the bridge of Halhoul-Hebron traffic flowed. There was no military presence at Shiuch-Sair junction.
Opposite the entrance to Kiryat Arba lies el-Bak’a, a little village or hamlet. There we bought tomatoes from a farmer, who told us that on Thursday an official from the DCO came to destroy his crop. He asked: “On what grounds?” “Because you steal water”. To this the farmer reacted: “You can’t deny me the right to live. It is you who steal our water”.  He told us that the whole village lives under demolishing threats. They are not allowed to build a school, neither a clinic. When they tried to build one, they got immediately an order to stop the work and afterwards a demolishing order. Dr. Mustafa Barghouti keeps a clinic in a flat. They do not belong to area A, so the DCO has full responsibility for their welfare.
Along the 356 road we saw also that the little shades of the fruit vendors were destroyed, (for safety reasons. I wish they would have cared for the safety of the children who have to cross the dangerous highway to the school at the Shiuch-Sair junction, by installing at least signs).

Into Hebron we did not enter this time. Schools are still closed and there is almost no pedestrian movement in this evil ghost town.