D. is leaving for a few days. He is going to see R., at the jail that Israel has next to the border with Egypt, in the most southern point of the country, on the other side of the desert. R. is going to be deported for staying in the country while he was waiting for his appointment to renew his visa and helping out the girls in this neighbourhood, like we are doing now. I will leave before D. returns from visiting R. so we exchange addresses and say our goodbyes.
Hebron IX. WIG
Today is Saturday and, there is a “visit” from the “women in green” (WIG) scheduled for today. It doesn’t’ happen every Saturday, but they do come rather regularly, and people who have been in Tel Rumeida for months are familiar with their doings.
Hebron VIII. The donkey
Today D. and I patrol the lower street together, between the stairs and the checkpoint every one have to use to go from this neighbourhood to the rest of Hebron and vice versa.
Hebron VII. The woman
Today I’m in the upper part of the neighbourhood. An old woman from one of the illegal settlements comes up walking shouting at every one she finds on her way.
I’m told to be careful with her, although she is not usually violent physically.
Hebron VI. They’re all terrorists
I’m usually in the lower street, but some times I am up the hill, where the children enjoy themselves playing ball games or asking us to take pictures of them. If you take one’s picture, that’s it, you’re done, they won’t stop bugging you until you have taken two pictures of each of them, and then again in groups.
Hebron V. Apartheid
It is mostly quiet in the street where I “patrol”. The street is usually deserted, apart from the soldiers at the checkpoints and the odd Palestinian. The shops are all closed down. Their doors are all green but rotten because they are not used or painted or looked after. Most of them have David’s stars painted on them, just like the Nazis used to paint swastikas on Jews’ shops. Now it is Palestinian shops that have a Jewish sign on their doors.
Hebron IV. Lies
My favourite spot to patrol from is the place where I first saw D. when I first arrived here. The spot is good because from here we see, at the same time, the coffin-checkpoint to our right, and the illegal Israeli settlement (or at least the settlers that would come out of it to violently harass Palestinians) to our left.
Hebron III. Drug dealing
When the children get out of school I leave this spot and go up the hill, next to the other settlement. Roughly half way between the two settlements that surround this Palestinian neighbourhood, there are two “outposts” for soldiers, one at each side of the street. In one of those outposts two soldiers detain a boy, for no apparent reason, and they ask him for his identity card and I see them like playing with it.
Hebron II. Saturday
Hebron, specially the neighbourhood we are in, between two illegal Israeli settlements, is brutally depressing. It one of those experiences where you think you are loosing your sanity. We are in a Palestinian neighbourhood, between two settlements full of quite fanatic and fearful Israeli settlers. They are so fearful they go out to the street with sub-machine guns, and they routinely stone Palestinians.
Hebron I. Anticipating the Sabbath
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.
