Two days escorting shepherds in the Jordan Valley including guarding at night

Saturday afternoon at 5 p.m. I came to Khalat Makhoul to stay overnight with the family of Y., the Palestinian shepherd. Last week we accompanied his wife to the Binyamin police station. Settler-colonists from Hemdat have been harassing the men and women of the family at night, and the Border Police patrols their encampment at night too, threatening them to stop working for B’Tselem (Israeli human rights organization).

We try to accompany them at night, too. I sat outside behind the hay wagon in the middle of the night for 3 hours, and later we came out because the shepherd was uneasy. The night passed and everyone managed to sleep well.

October 24, 2021
Today, I accompanied one of Y.’s brothers. The shepherd waited for a Palestinian filmmaker from Nablus who makes documentaries, working together with other filmmakers on the same topics in different countries. The filmmaker came with an assistant. The accompaniment was an hour-and-a-half shorter than planned because the shepherd, B., was busy talking and filming with the filmmaker most of the time. The topic of this documentary is the worsening grazing conditions in the Palestinian Jordan Valley, and ecological change issues in general.