Hebron: Palestinian children need to see a different Israeli

Hebron

Hebron, end of Ramadan month – war in the air

I went to this vigil heavy-hearted. It’s the last days of Ramadan, Jerusalem is in flames. War is in the air and on the news they’re saying they sent another four battalions to the ‘Judea and Samaria”. It’s not just semantics when I write “the West Bank” and they say “Judea and Samaria”. 54 years of occupation and the generation that knew no other rule has been taking over the collective mind, and despair reigns.

My life partner Sh. begs me to be careful, and I insist on going. It’s so important that Palestinian children see another kind of Israeli. Go figure what triggers terrorism… Occupation certainly does not prevent it.

So what happened during the vigil:

First story – A. joins our car at Beit ‘Anoun and we return him home. He says that the settler-colonist who doesn’t give up trying to build a house on A.’s privately owned land was hanging around there at night 3 days ago and frightened them. They are afraid he’ll burn their home down. A. called the police who told him there’s nothing to do about it, anyone can take a walk anywhere they wish.

Second story: Due to the Covid-19 pandemic we no longer meet the CPT (Christian Peacemaking Team) members walking around the streets of Hebron. Today, to our great surprise, we saw their red caps again. We stopped to chat, apparently these are fellows from Hebron who took it upon themselves to continue the organization’s monitoring and they do it every day. A young man and woman who heard about us a lot. We exchanged phone numbers and decided to meet regularly once every 2 weeks, on my vigil day.

Third story: the entrance to Kligilis village on road 60 has been closed ever since we began our vigils. Today it was open! We entered the village and reached the Sheep Junction through it.

Next time there will probably be signs warning Israelis not to enter Area A…