1. Route 60 north on the way to the Meitar crossing. East of the road, the city of Meitar spreads north like a long, narrow sausage, without any community or municipal logic, the logic of course – to stop the Bedouins, to protect the  Jewish settlements along the road to the east. I remember the construction of the city of Efrat in the more northern part of Road 60, in the territories, between Gush Etzion and Bethlehem, the same format, a long Jewish settlement sausage with the object of blocking  the road to the east to prevent Palestinian access. Like the Sycamore Farm + the Phillip Farm that blocks Bedouins from the Negev from reaching the north, west of Road 40 / Road 6. The same logic of Jews-without-Arabs, within the Green Line and beyond.

2. Further down the road, south of Beit Hagai, works east of the road by Netivei Israel compaby: electricity for settlers only.

3. A family visit to the settlement of Adorayim, just west of Route 60 in the direction of Khursa (and the settlement , Negohot). The sign on the road indicates “Beit Dror (Dror House)” and not Adorayim. It is a fortress surrounded by a courtyard and a wall, served as an IDF camp, and when the camp was evacuated, the building became an emergency service center for the settlements of southern Hebron Mountains (ambulances, fire brigade, police, security camera center). Definitely a drop in government budgeting because the settlements are forced to man these services by volunteers. “Dror House” is named after Dror Weinberg who was killed in an operation in Hebron but the name was not absorbed. Everyone says Adorayim which was the name of the former military cap even though there is a settlement with the name of Adora on Road  35, which connects Road 60 with its intersection north of Hebron. The building has been converted into residential apartments of varying sizes according to the number of children. Today, the place is home to 17 families, the oldest of whom are in their thirties, and there is also a children’s home for the many children.

4. This time we spent most of the shift visiting Ata Jaber, on a hill east of Road 60 in front of Kiryat Arba. This is a reminder for those who do not remember his story from reports from previous years. He has a Kushan (document of ownership) on his lands, and yet in 1982 the Civil Administration declared the lands as state lands. First  the CA admitted that 4 dunams are actually owned by him, in 2009  they claimed that only 1.6 dunams are his and even for that they did not give him permission. Since 1982 he  has suffered from reports and constant demolition and harassment. Expenditures are high, both on fines and on lawyers. Suddenly  there is a demand to  re-registration of the claim, or a claim that the material has disappeared, refusing to sign his maps, or claiming that what is written in the documents is “unclear”. For example, years ago his garden was destroyed, including the felling of his olive trees. Claimed that the dirt road ascending from Route 60  to his home was not his. Meanwhile, the settlers broke through an occupied road near his house to the east and from there to the north, a road that allows them to roam the Palestinian territories between Shuyukh to the north and Bani Naim to the south. The most traumatic event was when settlers defiled the sign with the verses of the Koran above the entrance to the house with human feces. I am appalled by the evil of so-called religious Jews, very ashamed.

Ata also tells of 8 dunams of grapes owned by his family within Kiryat Arba. Only one day was allocated to them  for the grape harvest. They worked fast so as to do as much as possible in such a short time and felt like thieves on their own land.

His Hebrew is good, he studied at the University of Hebron and later hotel management in Jerusalem, worked in hotels and banquet halls in Israel and studied languages. During the Gulf War, all Palestinians were fired (because of their support for Saddam Hussein), and then worked as a plasterer. Today he has jaundice and does not work. A proud man, he never took money from his father, and now he has to enlist the help of his son, who is also having a hard time making a living during the Corona period. Atta speaks  about the irony of the Oslo Accords, when the demolition of houses in Area C began. He is happy to meet a female rabbi who has the same ideas as he has and is prepared to have meetings between Israelis and Palestinians on his land. His wife also comes out to us. It seems that three of her brothers are in Israeli jails, one in Beersheva and two in Nafha. Only their parents can visit him.

5. In front of Shuyukh, we drive on the road west through an industrial area which  handles heavy mechanical equipment (settlers also use these services), to the top of the hill, with the hallucinatory outpost “Mevasser” which  is not inhabited at all, but which has  the power  to control an entire area with only minimal forces. A tower  with  inscriptions in Hebrew (photo sequence), buildings, garbage cans. Once upon a time there was a guard here, today also there is not. The main thing is that we also stuck a foot in the door here.

6.Finally, I would like to recommend the novel “Revenge of the Fathers” in the volume of all the writings of Yitzchak Shami published under the title ” The mill of Life”.

Shomi  was born in Hebron to a Jewish family from Damascus, hence the nickname that the Arabs of Hebron gave the family (derived from a-Sham). He is a Hebrew writer who was not accepted by the literary tasters of his generation, was also translated into Arabic and is considered by the Palestinians to be a Palestinian writer who wrote in Hebrew (!). The novel is based on his experiences, when he was in an unusual act, allowed with his brother to participate together with Muslims from Hebron in the annual trip to Musa’s tomb near Jericho which is an  important Palestinian celebration. The enmity between the convoy from Nablus and the convoy from Hebron ends in murder and  in anticipation of blood feuds. The novella ends in the Cave of the Patriarchs, Haram al-Ibrahim, where the killer arrives hoping to finally settle the affair. The Hebronites are summoned to avenge the murdered man’s blood, which in the end was not necessary as the killer collapses and dies. This is the revenge of the ancestors buried there. This story has been swirling in my head since reading along with all the other horrible stories associated with the place.