Today’s task: Collecting testimonies from Palestinians for the purpose of filing a lawsuit for a heinous act.

We met one shepherd in the pasture and another shepherd in his house. Two shepherd brothers are still being held in custody in the Ofer camp, since the day their cattle was taken out of their hands, about a week ago. Another court hearing will be held on Thursday.

In fact, this is one of the only times I have come across shepherds who claim their rights.

The Valley Shepherds’ accompanying group  activity is strengthened with additional personnel and new initiatives every day. And on the other hand, the aggression of the settlers and the army against the Palestinians increases and becomes extreme – all along the valley. Everywhere we go we hear similar things. Every community has its “Uri”. Uri from a lonely and illegal outpost, which will be legal in a moment, who now pretends to be a soldier in military fatigues and gives instructions to the Palestinians, and continues to issue instructions to the army.  The settlers’ grazing lands are expanding, while the Palestinian shepherds have nothing left. When we sat with them, their eyes were darting from here to the nearest road or the nearest settlement for fear that someone was following them. Feeling so utterly persecuted.

We were in four different communities, in each a similar story.

Today an inspector from the Civil Administration came to the pasture of one of the shepherds and informed him that the area he was grazing in was a fire area or a closed military area or a nature reserve. Choose one of the options. Just not a Palestinian pasture. The inspector showed him a map and some paper written in Hebrew. He spoke to him in Arabic, so that the Israelis who were there did not understand at all what was happening. In another case when a Palestinian dared to ask “why?”, the policeman told him “because he is Jewish and you are Arab”.

In another place, the settler told the army that the shepherds were on a Firing Zone. Then the army and the police appeared and loaded the cows on a truck and took them where they took them. Some of the cows are scattered in the area “allowed to graze” and they failed to count how many. Each sentence flies in the wind and is not connected to the other. It’s hard to follow what’s going on even when trying to sort it out. I am also confusing the cases here because that is the general feeling of the situation.

The main thing is that a lot of blessed rain fell and there is a lot of mud. You can sink up to your knees metaphorically and literally. And again, as always, nature continues its course. The green is very, very green. The hills are rolling and beautiful. If only the human spirit were normal, there would be a paradise of beauty and harmony.