South Hebron, AM

South Hebron, Wednesday 21.7.04, AM Watchers: Leah Y., Hagit B., (hebrew reporting) Zafrira A., (English reporting) We left Tsomet Shoket at 7.00 a.m. and returned at 10.30a.m. Road 60. New earth barriers along the margins. Obsrevation posts are manned. Some of the inner roads have been resurfaced, but there is very little movement of either pedestrians or vehicles on the permitted roads. There were however, many military vehicles of various kinds. A "flying checkpoint" at the junction of 60 with 356 with 5 soldiers stopping Palestinian vehicles and checking their papers - 10 to 15 minutes stop for each car. The 'New" barrier after Zif junction is not manned.We met two representatives of TIPH -Temporary International Presence in Hebron - on the Halhul-Hebron bridge. They reported that Hebron is quiet, but quiet before the storm - all are waiting to see what will happen when the Wall reaches this area. An road 317, a bulldozer is widening the road for the benefit of the occupation settlers only. The water situation in Hirbet Tuwaini and Susiya We met with S. the mukhtar and helped him to contact CDO. The village will receive 10 cubic M. of water every alternate day by army tanker from Yatta. The poisoned well [resorvoire] contained 150 cubes of water and the army has promised to supply this amount. The resorvoire cannot be cleaned until the experts have decided how to get rid of the poisoned water and how to clean the well before the winter rains. H. is in daily contact with CDO to make sure that they carry out their responsibility. We met the volunteers of Ta'ayush, who are running a summer camp for the children of the villages - happy children and a nice atmosphere. We were followed all the way by a police jeep. We drove to Susiya with N. one of the residents to see their wells which they are not allowed to use, as the settlers need the water for their sheep. There are three wells in the area between the roads leading on one side to the army camp and the settlers and on the othere side to the archeological site. N. also pointed to the fields belonging to their village which they are no longer allowed to plough or use for grazing for their flocks. We need to confirm if this is really the case.