Dura-Al Fawwar Junction, Hebron, South Hebron Hills

07:30-12:30

Good news – The gates from Beit ‘Anun to Hebron have been opened and traffic flows around the circle and on Highway 60.  The entrance to Karameh is also open.

There’s a flying checkpoint at Ukafim junction where Highway 60 meets Highway 35.  All yellow taxis are being stopped and pulled over to the side to inspect IDs.

A flying checkpoint also at the exit from Dahariyya, and the exit from Al Fawwar, and also below Beit Haggai.

Hebron – Paratroopers have replaced Nahal soldiers.  Only flags remain at Mitzpeh Avichai.  Everything else has been removed.

Below Giv’at Ha’Avot, where the Hazon David synagogue once stood, is a police car.  All the H2 area appears deserted and the distress is palpable.  The checkpoints are deserted.  Where is everyone?

Two tales of the occupation:

1. At the entrance to the settlement of Adora, on Highway 35, members of a large hamula, men, women and children, wait by the gate, beside a military jeep and the closed entrance to the settlement.  They’re waiting for permission to access their fields located inside the settlement, within the fence that surrounds it.  More than one hundred dunums.  Now everyone is harvesting olives.  They say they’re permitted to be inside the settlement only six hours daily, which isn’t enough.  The leader of the hamula is talking to the army man.  One of his young sons says to me...Why do we need permits to access our own land?...

2. A yellow taxi is parked at Beit Haggai, beside a jeep with soldiers.  We stop to see what’s happening.  It turns out that earlier that morning the soldiers lost the ID of one of the people they were inspecting.  She went home and the driver is worried about how she’ll get the ID.  Phone calls to the situation room and discussions with the soldiers haven’t helped…  The soldiers say they haven’t seen the ID.  Why should they care?  The young Palestinian woman will have to obtain a new ID – a procedure that costs NIS 400.  A great deal of money.

It’s been almost fifty years, and the only change is that things are getting worse…