The men from Zanuta (east of the main road) left to Hadariya where their families were, because the one-eyed colonist from Yanoun Farm outpost as well as Elyashiv from the Yehuda Farm outpost bring other colonists with them to go on harassing them, and do not let them reconstruct their homes and school.

In addition to the local men, we also meet Faez, head of the Zanuta local council. There is a Supreme Court order stating that all land of Zanuta A and B belongs to Palestinians, and that the Israeli police and army must protect them. However, they cannot build or reconstruct anything. But may live and graze in the area. In actual fact, according to him, “Unlawful people disrupt the lives of lawful people”. The colonists make their lives unbearable, so they turn to the Kiryat Arba police that arrives only half an hour later and does not protect them at all. The colonists have devastated the grazing ground and their cattle has even destroyed the olive tree saplings they had planted.

Two Jewish volunteers sleep here in order to protect the villagers from the colonists (Protective Presence). One of them was my student in the Bina group at Beer Sheva years ago, and now she sits and reads Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain. So far she has been in Susya, A Tawane, and Sha’ab al Botm. I know one of these people from the religious left, and he too reads philosophy books here. He says they are renewing the activity of their group, “Sons of Abraham”, who come to the Palestinians in Hebron/Tel Rumeida, with the activists.

Hussein Salem Abu Sharakh from the Tiran area, 49- years-old, is also here. He tolls us how he grazed his flock west of his village when colonists from the “Boaz” unit jumped at him,, shackled him in the back, blindfolded him and beat him up for 8 hours, stole the 200 dinars he had his shirt pocket as well as 16 boats. All that time, people from the village looked for him, his son called the Civil Administration that claimed that his father was not in its hands. On the way back, M. points to the area mentioned. Between Road 60 and the Tene Omarim colony, all land taken by the JNF and filled up with colonist outposts.

A delegation of the Palestinian Authority arrives, with red rather than green license plates. The delegation is headed by the head of the Ministry of Agriculture in Hebron, Mahmoud Izir. The head of the local council reports to them about the state of things at Zanuta. Apparently at the request of the village, they brought a large truck loaded with straw for the sheep closed in their corrals, as they are not allowed to graze.

The truck makes its way slowly and carefully in the dirt track leading from Road 60 to the village. Nearly everyone comes down to greet it. Several pickup trucks come down to the point where the truck stopped, and after long discussion about the way to unload it, the sacks of straw begin being unloaded from the truck to the pickup trucks. This myust take a long time.

One of the Palestinians who did not come down to the truck complains: he has been waiting for 20 days for this shipment and is now afraid the straw would not be fairly distributed.