Hebron and a frightening situation

On Tuesday I went to the city of Hebron, the burial place of Abraham. We wanted to go to the citty center, but we had some major difficulties. One problem here that seems quite unfair is that foreigners are routinely allowed to go to places that Palestinians are forbidden to enter. One of the holiest places for Islam is the mosque that is next to the burial site of Abraham. It is also a holy place for Chrisitians and Jews. The sad part is that Israeli soldiers have restricted access to this holy place, and sometimes restrict entry to a day of the week that is not the day for prayer, which is supposed to be Friday. It's like someone surrounded the Vatican or something like that and said you could go in on Saturdays but not Sundays.

What really broke me heart was when we walked through the streets of inner Hebron. Settlers have taken the top floors of buildings here and occupied them, often throwing out their inhabitants. The Palestinians have put in place fishing nets to catch all the garbage the settlers throw out the window on people passing by. The settlers throw feces, urine, and rocks on top of people passing by. We got to see some of the bags thrown down, and it definitely was human excrement. In case we were in doubt of the veracity of this experience for palestinians, one of the girls in our group (who is a blond tall female) was hit in the head by a rock from above where the settlers live. She was relatively unhurt but a little shaken up as one could expect. There are 500 Jewish settlers here and 10,000 Israeli soldiers stationed to protect them. The settlers walk around with machine guns and generally make life miserable for the people surrounding them. We got to see photos the people of the city had taken of men that had been shot by Israeli soldiers that were bleeding to death and being dragged through the streets by the soldiers while they were dying. We got to see the Jewish settlements and saw the children of settlers digging up olive trees that were hundreds of years old to replace them with palm trees. We were helped out by a local Arab shop owner, who convinced the soldiers to let us through to see more of the situation.

After this experience, we got to go up on top of one of the roofs of a Palestinian and saw the extent of the security. We saw dozens of fortified positions, sniper stations, plenty of barbed wire, and more. The children in this building were living in appaling conditions. We learned later that Israeli soldiers had set the building on fire when they suspected a wanted man of being in there. The result was that many children were burned alive. On top of the building, we saw the water tanks for the settlers. They were massive, and were filled with water. The Palestinian water tanks had bullet holes through them so that they could not hold water. There only option is to catch rainwater, and some of the soldiers have a habit of shooting up their water tanks, for whatever reason they would like. We saw a fortified position, and when the guys saw us, they started singing loudly. I sang along, which they were a little surprised about.

A little Palestinian boy was on top of the roof, and a little Israeli settler boy was also on the roof. The Israeli boy walked over to the edge of the barbed wire, as did the Palestinian boy. Then they started talking as friends would. The soldier motioned for the kid to get back, but the Israeli boy ignored him. The kids told us that many of the kids from the different sides are good friends. However, they can never touch each other or shake hands or hug because of the barbed wire on top of the roofs. This wanted to make me cry. These kids care about each other even though their parents hate each other. I think this shows the capacity of the human heart and that hate is an unnatural state.

We were given some propaganda about how terrible the life is for Jews in Hebron. The worst pictures they could show us were an Arab woman giving them the finger and a jewish girl escorted by Palestinian police. The Jewish community existed in Hebron for hundreds of years, and left with all the conflict in the Zionist period, then came back. The settlers here are not neighbors, they are dominating. It is interesting to see 500 people make life hell for hundreds of thousands of people here in this city. They have taken the site of Abraham's grave and turned it into a war zone.

After Hebron, we went to a ceramic factory where they let me have a pot that had a defect for free and let me paint it to take home. Then we went back home to our campsite.