As part of the Sabbath prohibitions of all kind of work, strict Jews can not drive. For a whole day every week, the Palestinians run the risk of being the victims of armed Israelis that they could meet walking on this street.
Being as it is the Jewish weekly festivity, the street fills with settlers going from one illegal settlement to the other carrying cakes on their hands and machine guns on their backs, in a kind of procession, all wearing black trousers, white shirts, black hats, beards and ringlets.
Since they are walking, not driving, through the so hated Palestinians’ neighbourhood, and walking takes a lot longer than driving, they also have that much longer to harass and terrorise the Palestinians.
The result is that the Palestinians have learnt to fear the Saturdays in Hebron, and they do their best to spend the day elsewhere or locked in their houses. Indeed, all Palestinians here have done their best to spend the rest of their lives elsewhere. The remaining ones are only here because they really have nowhere else to go.
I too have been taught to fear the Saturday here. When the day comes, our daily plans change somehow, we all are more alert and breaks are shorter. Those groups that can afford it send more people to the streets as “reinforcements”. Groups that can’t, like ours, simply make sure that they don’t send anyone anywhere on their own.
