South Hebron Hills, Thu 12.1.12, Morning

trans. Charles K.

We originally intended to go to Huda’s kindergarten with baskets of fruits and vegetables to teach them about the market and what you can find there. But we anticipated that there would be few, if any children because of the cold, windy weather, while on the other hand our friend Juma’a from Khirbet Tawani told us his tractor had been confiscated until he pays a fine, and he needs us, so we exchanged the kindergarten for the complicated bureaucracy of the occupiers.

We drove to the Palestinian Carmel, to meet up with Eid, who had to be paid for his participation in the kindergarten project.Eid told us about more demolition orders issued for his village, against two buildings, some tents and a soccer field they laid out together with peace activists and with the Civil Administration’s authorization. All because they’re located at the foot of the fence around the Carmel settlement, and the lords don’t like it.

This time they objected to reinforcing the fence posts of the soccer field with concrete…

Eid is optimistic.  He says their lawyer will take care of it.

We met Juma’a at the entrance to Kiryat Arba, with a friend and a car.  It turns out they managed to take care of some of the bureaucracy for us – to bring the Postal Bank payment voucher from the location where the tractor was being stored.

All we had to do was take the voucher and the cash and for the first time in our lives go to the Kiryat Arba post office (there’s no line!) to pay and bring back the confirmation that will allow him to pay the debt and release the tractor, because every day in storage costs him NIS 150!

On the way there, the sight of the demolished trailers of Mitzpe Avichai at the entrance to Kiryat Arba scorched our eyes.  They had been demolished last night, accompanied by massive TV coverage.  The trailers had indeed been overturned, but the solar panels and water tanks were still in place, suggesting that they could easily be re-erected.

Even though it was said the army had closed off the area we saw many settlers around, apparently collecting their belongings.  We took photographs under the watchful eyes of the soldiers lying in wait at the junction with a video camera – part of closing off the area?

We drove back to the checkpoint.