Burin (Yitzhar), Habla, Madama

Habla, Burin, Madama

1:40: Habla Gate: The gate was open, laborers were on their way to work at the nurseries. The activity from the opposite (Israeli) direction was weaker.

2:00: On our way to Burin.

The villages at the foothill of Jebel Salman suffer from the settlers of Yizhar, who do their best to prevent the villagers from cultivating their fields – but they have also been blocking free passage to the tomb of Selman el-Farsi and the prayer hall beneath it. This blockage affects several villages encircling the hill: Madamma, Asira el-Kibliyya, Burin to the north, and Huwwara, Inbis and Urif to its south.

At Burin we filmed a feature wherein a local high school teacher relates his anguish as a person bearing childhood memories of the holy site and as an educator prevented from conveying his educational message to his students. His wife described the barrier at Huwwara,  where the allotment of two workdays granted for olive picking was reduced to half a day due to the rain. They couldn't access their grove with their tractor as a settler blocked passage. Therefore they had to hand-carry the heavy crop to the tractor. The road to Huwwara is blocked – one may enter through it but cannot exit there.

We reached Medama at 5:00 and received the films that we had had difficulty accessing before. The person who brought them works at Elad and described the difficulties he had in reaching us. He requested that we leave out his name as he was worried that his identification would cause trouble.