The morning passed peacefully. Shepherds from four villages were escorted to the pasture without disruption and cattle were taken to drink without incident. During the morning, it was quiet and hot at El-Farisiya. However, problems on shabbat always start in the afternoon, after the settlers have rested and are ready to go out hunting their prey.

At Ein Al Hilwa, four settlers attempted to prevent the cows from drinking, but they were unsuccessful because the escorts stood physically between them and the cows. Having been unsuccessful there, they crossed the road to S’s encampment and harassed the mother and children. When the escorts arrived, the settlers left and went to the nearest outpost.

The main event that day was at A’s pasture near to El-Farisiya. A had gone with two volunteers to feed his sheep at the wheat field he leases. The wheat that he’d sewn in the winter hadn’t grown very high, because the settlers from Gilad’s outpost had taken their flocks there, despite numerous complaints to the police, who didn’t come – the wheat had been partially eaten.

A decided to go to the field that Saturday and treat his sheep to what was left, in the hope that he wouldn’t be disturbed. But at 4 o’clock, Gilad arrived with his shepherd dog and they walked into the midst of A’s flock. A and other shepherds who were with him tried to prevent it, and grappled with Gilad to fend him off.

Whenever Palestinian shepherds defend themselves, things just get worse. Both A and Gilad filmed each other in action and Gilad called the emergency response team from the Rotem outpost. They first looked for A in Farisiya Al-Ahmeir and then moved on to Al Farisiya itself and frightened the women and children. It was only when they realized he wasn’t there that they went down to the field and found him with the volunteer escorts and told him to wait. Both settlers were in civilian clothes and armed with submachine guns.

They called the army and six soldiers promptly turned up in a jeep. The soldiers spoke amicably to the settlers but refused to talk to the shepherds’ escorts. In the end, they informed the two shepherds that they were detained. Attempts by the escorts to describe the event from the Palestinian shepherds’ point of view were of no avail. The soldiers refused to respond and simply stood there to make sure that – heaven forbid – the shepherds wouldn’t run away. The escorts called the Human Rights Foundation, but that didn’t help either.

At 5 p.m., the zinzana (police van) arrived and the two shepherds were taken into custody. It took us hours to find out where. At 7:30 p.m., we called the Liaison and Coordination Administration in Jericho, and to our amazement, they said they’d check. It turned out that the army decided to detain the shepherds for six hours, which is the maximum time allowed “by law.” We still weren’t told where they were being held. Apparently, they accepted the Palestinian shepherds’ version of the event, but in order to pacify the settlers, they were punishing the Palestinians by holding them for as long as they could.

At 11:00 p.m., we went to pick them up at the nearby military camp, but they sent us to another camp, where we waited until 1:00 a.m. for the shepherds to be released. They said that they were beaten by the soldiers in the van but that no one touched them in the camp and they were given water only and no food throughout all those hours.

That’s daily life – night and day – for Palestinian shepherds in the Jordan Valley.