Hebron, Sansana (Meitar Crossing), South Hebron Hills

Meitar crossing – many vehicles but no delays.

Another very cloudy day and fairly rainy.

Again we tried to visit Fadl in Umm Faqra – but there’s no answer, and the explanation is probably that he’s grazing the flock at a distance.  This is an excellent season for grazing, after the rainy winter in the south and all the green landscape covered in good grass.

We drove to Hebron.  On the way, at the entrance to Negohot, is an army jeep and an ambulance, but all is calm. The barriers at the entrances to the villages are still open.

We entered Hebron from the south because it’s shorter, and the bet paid off (sometimes the gate is closed and we’re not allowed in).  Very few people outside anywhere in the city, also because of the rain.  Soldiers almost everywhere are snug in locations protected from the rain, including small plastic tentlike shelters.  It’s like that at the ruins of the Ohel David synagogue, near Beit Hameriva, and elsewhere. And so we weren’t stopped or detained anywhere.

Everything near the Cave of the Patriarchs is closed.  ‘Abed is almost the only one who opened his shop.  He said no one opens because there’s no business; there are no tourists, and not only because of the rain. Four or five very young female Arab tourists, of mixed background (Palestine-Bulgaria-Denmark-United States) sit at his shop for a few minutes.  Up at Tel Rumeida, above the Jewish cemetery next to the checkpoint, we watched them transfer merchandise “back-to-back” from a truck to a donkey cart.

On the way back south, another unsuccessful attempt to contact Fadl.

At A-Tuwani we wanted to visit the kindergarten and again found it closed (apparently due to the weather). Today the village is mourning someone so many men are walking together to the mosque.