Meet the new neighbours

We here in Palestine are always very welcoming of the new additions to the community. We are particularly appreciative of those who take such an interest in keeping the town safe; take the law into their own hands, stand up to their fears and say NO to crime. They bring armoured personnel carriers and mount machine guns on the balcony of their home, ready to spring into action at the first hint of trouble. So let’s shout a big, hearty welcome, to our new neighbours!

FACTS:
Husan village, west of Bethlehem
3 storey home close to Road 60, just off the main road of Husan
Accusations of stone throwing at cars by settlers of Betar Illit who use the road
IDF responds to accusations
2 personnel carriers, 1 jeep
Some 20 soldiers
02:00 on Saturday morning
Family of the home gets evacuated
An Israeli flag in a Palestinian village
It gets nasty
The international support is called in
We arrive
It stays nasty
The family has an army in their home which they are traumatised by
The soldiers harass the community from their new base
And the story continues…

Another day, another occupation

The red and green gate

We arrived before it was open and the people weren’t there and the gate was closed; the light was red. It was cold but we had expected the people to be there already. Jerusalem was shot up late last week and people died in bullets and since then the gate was closed; we thought there would be more people because this was the first day it was open. Our taxi driver told us the evening before that the gates had opened so we were expecting a rush to get into Israel. We considered going back home, it was four in the morning, unexpectedly cold and we weren’t sure if people were still going to come if they weren’t here yet. We decided to stay and before 15 minutes the gates had opened and people started ticking through the green-coloured turnstiles in regular pace. It looked good. It looked better than last week when already the turnstile was red and all the people were delayed and the line backed up and further backed up so before long hundreds had gathered outside the little red light that said in no uncertain terms, “No entry”.