Hebron, South Hebron Hills, Sun 5.5.13, Morning
Translator: Charles K.
06:33 We drove from Shokat junction straight to Hebron to arrive on time to see the children walking to school.
A military vehicle waits at the fence near Kramim for people in Israel illegally who are clearly visible on the opposite hill.
We didn’t stop at the checkpoint because from a distance it appeared empty; only the last laborers were crossing.
Three buses transporting relatives of prisoners passed us going in the opposite direction.
A soldier at the Kvasim junction walks a kindergarten girl across the street.
Leah, who’d come from Jerusalem, joined us at the Kiryat Arba gas station. The military unit stationed at the Federman farm has been relieved; the new flags fly in the wind.
Curve 160 is full of military personnel.
We stood for about half an hour at the Pharmacy junction with the four foreigners who also observe the pupils crossing. One is a Palestinian Moslem who used to live on Mount Scopus and emigrated to the cold lands. While we were there a bus transporting settler pupils drove by, bearing a sign reading “In IDF service.”
Giv’ati soldiers man the Tarpa”t checkpoint. Since we didn’t recognize them by their caps we asked one of the soldiers which unit they belonged to. He was pleasant and replied, which greatly annoyed one of the other soldiers who’d just returned from a patrol, so when we returned that soldier stopped us and asked for our driver’s ID card but firmly refused to receive ours.
A convoy of water tankers was leaving Kiryat Arba to deliver water to the area around Hebron.
On our way back we saw an archaeological salvage excavation near the Ma’on settlement, and stopped. It turned out that there’s a “Greater Ma’on” outline plan, so the Civil Administration archaeology officer is undertaking a salvage excavation, the second one, about one kilometer above Ma’on. The archaeologist told us that the Tawwani excavation was also a salvage operation since there’s an outline plan for Tawwani as well. He said it had been developed jointly with the residents (do we know anything about that?). The excavation will continue for 10-14 days. The diggers are Palestinians with “settlement” work permits.
We promised to return next week to see the finds.