Wednesday, in the wake of the total closure of Israel for the duration of the Purim holiday and beyond (until midnight on Saturday 23.03ز/19) and a request from our old friend Ata Ja’ber, we went to collect him from from Halhul where he sells vegetables and drive him home. As reported here, about a year ago the Civil Administration, essentially a branch of the army, destroyed his smallholding: vegetables, olive trees, vines and a well for gathering rain water. Ata has never recovered from the blow, economically and emotionally. He goes to Halhul every day to sell  the few vegetables he has been able to grow. We picked him up at the Halul checkpoint on Route 60 (not active after the morning hours) and took him home. His house is well-cared for and very pleasant; we drank tea in the yard under the branches of dead trees and looking at the upturned soil. Ata is not a young man and says he doesn’t have the strength to start rebuilding from scratch. The closure doesn’t affect him directly,  but he told us about neighbours for whom the loss of two days’ earnings hits hard. As he said: a choice between pita bread with homous and pita bread without and we know that this is no exaggeration. We returned to Beer Sheva; at the Meitar checkpoint some workers who somehow managed to enter Israel are returning home.  No one checks them and they go without difficulty towards two days of enforced redundancy. Happy Purim.