Journey South

I woke this morning at 1130 and after a shower of sorts, water is short in Bilyin due to the closeness fo the settlement that appears to do very well for water, I wonder why(Icant find the question mark on this computer so if I need to use one I will use the hash # mark).Had a chat with the coordinator and she said she needed two people to go the Hebron in the south. So me and M the Danish guy volunteered and got the Servise bus into Ramallah and then another one to Hebron which is about an hour and a half from Ramallah. We were to be met in Hebron by another Danish guy M. This may seem a little clandestine, the use of initials but although ISM is allowed to operate in the Occupied Territories plenty of internationals have been and continue to be deported if they are arrested and can be connected to ISM not becuase of their involvement you understand, its always for Visa expiry!Which is obviously bollocks (Sorry Elz) and as this an open blog I cant put people at risk so the the two Danish Ms will from here on be known as D1 and D2- D1 is the one who I did the training with and D2 the one in Hebron, all clear#.

So we travelled to Hebron and were met by D2 who walked us to the apartment used by ISM, this entailed going through an Israeli checkpoint which wasnt a problem.

Hebron- A background. Hebron is in Palestine, Hebron is Palestinian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebron

Hebron is divided into H1 and H2 areas, H1 area is Palestinian controlled and H2 is IOF controlled, and now here is the good bit, since the second intifada in 2002 the IOF are in H1 as well, checkpoints, squaddies everywhere, disrupting the daily lives of the Palestininans. In the hour and a half we were walking we got stopped and asked questions 4 times, my first direct experience of the IOF. We walked through the Old Market distict which as D2 said is like aghost town, the steets deserted, dogs in skips, squaddies with automatic weapons and us. Why is like this# The big problem in Hebron is Settlers, they are regarded as the looniest of the loons, I am trying to be polite because you dont kbnow who is reading this! Fucking nutters really, the settlers whose houses surrounded the old market were throwing washing machines, shooting people, chucking pooh and wee,basically making the market unusable which it now is. There are around 8,500 settlers in and around Hebron and it appears that their reason fro living is to make it as difficult and unpleasant as possible for the Palestinians in the hope that they will leave and all beacuse some guy called Abraham lived here, or visited here 3,800 years ago! Dont ya just religion!

Our job here is multi faceted, night raid are common, settler violence more so and breaches of the Oslo agreements by the IOF not uncommon so we are to monitor, document where we can, de escalate where possible and to escort the kids to school as they cross checkpoints, how shit is that#stopping kids 3 or 4 times as they go to school, and I am not talking about teenages here, this is infant school age kids and international volunteers are having to guarentee their safety. So as I sit in the aprtment waiting for the call to come for an incursion it feel very much like being on nights at work! Yes, I can still remember that....just!

Till next time, tata