Hebron vicinity – children don’t go to school because of fear from settlers

On Route 60 the entrances to all the villages are closed and blocked. The majority are by dirt and rock embankments, but you can also see yellow metal barriers.

Military vehicles can be seen more than ever. Both jeeps and vans and protected Savanna vehicles.

Muhammad arranged a meeting in the morning with Ata Jaber who had asked some time ago that we visit him. In a phone call before our arrival, he said that he was in a clinic in Hebron with his sick wife (Ata is also not well). Due to delays and checkpoints at every corner, they had to walk and did not arrive in time.

We entered Ata's mother's land and met Ata's brother Jawdi, who lives near the mother's house. Jawdi says that every day stones are thrown by settl ers also at night by settlers from Givat Haharsina (official name Ramat Mamra) in the north of Kiryat Arba. In the photo I took you can see the flag in the Jewish neighbourhood, above the house of the Jaber family who have lived there for hundreds of years. The family members are being cursed every day, including the children. The fear of settler violence means that the children of Abed, Jaudi's son, did not go to school.

During the conversation Jawdi mentions the cave where his ancestors lived and where he also grew up with his brothers and sisters. Only in 1977 did they build the mother's house and its adjacent house. We parted with a heavy heart.

We returned via Route 356 and turned left to Pnai Hever settlement to check if the entrance to Bani Naim was blocked. Indeed it was.

In front of Pnai Hever, a poster calling to return to the Gaza Strip. not surprising.

We stopped at Nabil's grocery store in Zif, according to him everything is as usual.

Further down the road, a few kilometres away, near the exit from Yatta, the Israeli flag flies on a building that used to be used as a military post.

Also on Route 317, through which we returned, there are roadblocks at the entrances to all the villages, and more military vehicles than usual.

Occupation routine.