Bethlehem and vicinity: Nuamman, Thursday 1.2.07Observers: Yehudit E, Tamar A (reporting) Shift: 6:30-8:30 Now it is possible to get by car from Um Tubas through the garbage site to the place where they started paving the road leading to Tkoa and Nokdim. At the entrance to the construction site there were two or three rocks that block the entrance for vehicles. Five bulldozers and other kinds of heavy machinery, were working in full speed, they have already lowered the hill by some meters. The road is going to be wide and that’s why the construction site is huge. You have to pass it in order to get to Nuamman, to jump by the bulldozers and guess where they are heading so that you won’t get run over. A healthy adult can manage, but what about the 10-15 children that have to pass there twice a day, when heading to and from their kindergarten or school? It will be a miracle if no one gets hurt. The writing is on the wall. But the BP has decided not to give the residents at Nuamman the possibility to get to Jerusalem, not even to those that have a blue ID, because the High Court for Justice had sentenced that the passage for people from the west bank must be assured. But the verdict doesn’t say anything about the passage to Jerusalem so the BP concluded that it isn’t supposed to be included. On the other side of the construction site the they put a fence to separate between the path leading to Nuamman and the chasm, but this is a solution to a relatively small problem. Y’ uses that path to get to work. He said that some of the children don’t go to school because of the path is so dangerous. We later met five children that would have to pave a way for themselves among the bulldozers. Y’ son is about 16 years old, he escorts his sister to her kindergarten. The driver afterwards told us about the way that boy lifted his sister to get her safely across the construction site. She lived for a few days at her grandfather’s and grandmother’s at Aum Tubas, the family wanted to spear her the effort and danger, but eventually she missed her parents and her brothers and preferred to make the whole way each day. The entrance to Nuamman is still filled with pits, another obstacle on the way to Jerusalem. No one was heading to the checkpoint that leads to the West Bank. We observed the checkpoint from above. The work on the new terminal has been stopped for a while now, the huge straightened side and the brick wall that surrounds it, are standing there without any use. A car heading to Nuamman arrived at the checkpoint. After a couple of minutes that soldier was kind enough to open the gate and the car passed without any inspections.