Shabat July 6 in the South Hebron Hills with Ta'ayush תעאיוש تعايش
Right at the turn off to Tweine, we are stopped by a soldier, clearly a settler (it seems most of the soldiers here are settlers) eager to find a bureaucratic excuse to deny us access to the Palestinian villages in area C.
He manages to hold us up for almost two hours, calling the police, who ultimately clarify the totally unfounded issue and we are let go - but with an order that forbids us from passing that intersection again, giving the settler- soldier some boost to his ego.
In the meantime, his army vehicle blocks the road, and the setter-soldier refuses to move it, so that two Palestinian teachers in one car and their students in a second car, cannot get to the final exam of their courses in time. The occupation demands a lot of patience, a lot of time just wasted in waiting and waiting and waiting (that that is the least of the occupation's evils).
We go to Um il Kheir instead, where we witness the destruction of several homes, that I posted about on June 26 with the video Facebook by Eidu Suleman, whose house was among those leveled completely.
Um il Kheir is right across the fence from the settlement of Carmel, that is most likely behind getting the authorities' concerted efforts to rid the area of Palestinians. And now a new outpost across the hills does the dirty work for them by physically attacking the Palestinian community on an almost daily basis.
But even clearing up the rubble is forbidden and must be stopped for fear it will invite further destruction. The Palestinians do not want the settlers to see that we are helping them, for that would anger the settlers more - and so we just wait around, just in case we are summoned in other emergencies.
