Hebron
After a journey through fog and white fields, we reached a white city bathed in snow.
We arrived after a rather stormy week. A. said that there was a strike against the PA, which in Hebron was full and 20,000 people took to the streets. The strike also took place in other parts of the West Bank, but it was not as full as in Hebron. The strike broke out due to the Authority's decision to change the terms of the pension and against the workers' committee, which had cooperated with it. It was decided to set up new committees that would work on a voluntary basis and would not receive a salary from the Authority so that they would not be tempted to cooperate with them. An impressive response of a society under occupation, and to a culture built mostly on the interests of clans.
Our friend Issa said that in the absence of lawyers' support during the detention phase and sometimes even during the first interrogation phase, they decided to teach youth their rights so that they would not be afraid or helpless. The activity is carried out by Youth Against the Settlements, who advocate nonviolent resistance.
M. said that the settlers come to the center every day to harass and throw stones. They frighten the youth because they, the settlers, are not subject to the law, the army always intervenes in favor of the settlers, and the hand on the trigger is light. He put it in his exact way: one law for settlers and a lawlessness for Palestinians. The children of the settlers come to harass the children of the Cortoba school in Tel Rumeida, some of the Palestinians children have to come back from school through the stairs descending from Tel Rumeida to Beit Hadassah. The settlers' children start harassing and attacking, and then the army comes and separates them and arrests the (only) Palestinian children. Children aged 10-12 are taken into custody.
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And other news from Hebron, which was given to us by the father of the family we visited with, who had opened Tel Rumeida to Palestinians who do not live in the area. Up to now only those who lived in the area were allowed in according to a list which the army held. While we were there a friend who lives in another village in the West Bank came to visit them. The local residents will now be able to celebrate their holidays with their extended family who, they can host in their homes, a basic human right which has been stolen from them up to now.
On Wednesday the Hebron area was covered with snow which whitened my face with its background of my sins and shame.
We rode along the roads of Tel Rumeida in puddles of snow and water.
