When we arrived, we saw K and another three volunteers/activists standing by the fence surrounding his house and watching four settlers 30 meters away marking out a plot of land and driving in stakes. It looked as if they were planning to erect a structure next to K’s house. The area has been fenced for a month already and there was already a sign denoting “Amichai’s orchard.” One of the settlers tried to engage us in an argument, which didn’t succeed, apart from one of the activists yelling “blasphemy” at him and K’s desperate loud shouts.

The fig tree, which had been thriving and full of leaves on our last visit a month ago, had been stripped almost bare after settlers from the nearby settlement (angels of death, but they call themselves angels of peace, ha-ha) came every day with their cows, which destroyed all the foliage, while the herdsmen rested in the shade of the fig tree.

Suddenly, K spotted a settler on the other side of the yard with ten cows munching on the young saplings in the yard. It transpired that the settler had sawn the iron pole holding up the fence, flattened it, and pushed the cows into the yard, right up to the house! After a discussion along the lines of “It’s all ours. It’s our land, our patriarch Abraham …” and other rubbish about owning all the land, the volunteers went in with K and began shoving the cows out. While this was happening, the settler chased after them with a stick, pushed and threatened them if they didn’t get out. At a certain point, when the settler raised his stick in order to hit K, the latter tried to grab the stick from his hands, but let it go at once for fear of being accused of violence. All this time, we called the police and so did K. We gave them our location and they said they were on their way.

Two hours later, no one had arrived (the police station is 20 kilometers away). After the activists had managed to get the cows out, they resumed feasting on what was left of the foliage in K’s olive grove. We ran after them to chase them away, and then the settler took out his pepper spray and sprayed Khaled in the eyes. Blinded, Khaled went into his house to take care of his burning eyes. We looked around and saw that all the trees were almost bare. Nothing left of the leaves and the fruit. A sorry sight.

Before the incident at Marajem, we drove to Jerusalem to fetch a wheelchair for A, a paralyzed 5-year-old girl, so she could be brought to Alyn hospital next week for tests and preliminary medical treatment. After Marajem, we drove to her family to finalize all the arrangements for the journey. The family was extremely stressed and afraid of the possibility that soldiers at the checkpoint or on the road would harm them. I’ve never seen anyone so afraid of leaving home. They also had great difficulty understanding what they needed to do (e.g., get a permit from the Palestinian DCO) after the permit had already been issued by the Israel side. I’m full of dread about the trip and all that can go wrong for the girl and her grandmother at the hands of the army on these hostile and violent roads.