1. 1. Road 60 as well as 317 are lined with Israeli flags all along. That is what de-facto annexation looks like (accompanied by ethnic cleansing).
   2. Entrances to Palestinian localities are blocked by metal yellow gates: Samu’a, Simiya, Dhahariya, Abdah. Palestinian vehicles that try to bypass such barriers via dirt tracks are stopped by the Israeli army. Their keys are confiscated, the drivers punished by standing for many hours, keys are either given back or not. In the meantime, the stopped vehicle blocks the breakthrough. We are told of the trick: hold another key in your pocket and try to get away. At the Dura / Al Fawwar Junction we meet R., of the Ifqayaqis clan near Negohot settlement, the compound of which is blocked on all sides by the settlers. Since one cannot get to them with food, we give them cash which the mother sends with her brother. She and her sisters work at Dura and rent an apartment there. Since October 7, 2023 she has nearly never been home. She printed the final certificates for Huda’s kindergarten children as they graduate and face first grade at school. Mohammad will bring the certificates to the kindergarten next week.
   3. At Adorayim Junction, a sign directs us to a new outpost, Mitzpe Reuven, south of Adorayim across the road. Opposite Abdah, too, stands a new sign directing one to a new outpost, Afeka. The entire area is filled with new such outposts.

4. Visiting F. in Simiya: This village has two schools both sides of Road 60. His wife operates the kiosk in one of them, while his son works there as a janitor. F. personally has a hard time eking out a livelihood from farming. He used to have a taxi cab but there is no work at present so that is no solution. He has ground near the road which he cannot tend because people pass there and trample it. Opposite us, on the other side of the road, G.’s compound, settlers have introduced cattle that finished off all the potatoes he used to grow. F. reports two incidents:

On the eve of Independence Day, two settlers placed Israeli flags along the road. One of them rode and placed them there while the other followed and suck them in the ground.

the settlers ran after children in the village, claiming they had stolen the flags.
They tried to break into F.’s house. His daughter was home and locked the door, so they emptied the drinking water buckets outside.
Their neighbors have a pump for getting water from the water hole, and a settler took it apart and tried to steal it. F. was in his greenhouses at the time. They called him and he came home immediately. The settlers demanded IDs, so his brother- in-law gave his, while F. refused. Settlers chased his grandson who was walking toward the shop near the road. F. showed them a flag with which girls had been playing, not stealing anything. The army was summoned, F. reported that his ID was taken, the army took the ID from the settler and gave it back to its owner. One of the settlers apologized, perhaps for fear of the army…

Yesterday afternoon saw an incident in nearby Deir Shams, of which F. knows through their regional communication network. A. from Shweika has an olive grove there. He came to chase away a settler who keeps entering the tree grove with his vehicle. The settler invited an auxiliary force of more settlers. They beat up A. and his son. The army came and arrested A., his son is now hospitalized in Soroka. Out of fear, Palestinians did not video this attack. The settlers ruined all the olive trees. Incidentally, M.’s brother once purchased a plot with a house at Deir Shams when it was lucrative to do so, but does not really go there.

5. A flock of cattle belonging to Yinon Levy of the Meitarim outpost (this is the murderer of Aude Hadhaleen from Umm al Khair) now grazes where Zanuta was once situated and has been depopulated, displaced.