Journey to Palestine: Day 3

Sunday - Woke up early to visit the locations for some of our other projects based in Hebron, as we don’t start at the schools till Tuesday.  Thinking back, it makes me laugh how we left the community centre in single file, looking like death, hoping not to have to talk much. I closed my eyes, surrendering to the sun’s dominance and looked down as we started walking, awaiting the arrival of a ‘servees’. I quietly laughed at the thought of giving my sunglasses away the day before.  Shared taxis are quite frequent, passing between Hebron and Yatta, with the camp in the midst, except on Fridays when it’s not advisable to plan a journey if you’re restricted by time.  But normally, we just walked in the direction we needed to go and a ‘servees’ would arrive in good time, all keen for our custom.

The settlements look really freaky, like Satan himself has set up camp in them.  Sometimes, I mistook a Palestinian house for a settlement but I think it’s the aura of desertion emanating from the properties which I found creepy; big houses with no sign of life in them.  So, we walked farther down the road and as we reached the entrance of the girls school (a minute walk from where we were staying), our presence was quickly eclipsed by a shadow.  It was a bus.  Not just any bus, but an Israeli tour bus.  Its passengers?  Non-nationals of Jewish descent who are invited to Israel on a ‘birth-right’ in an attempt to entice them to relocate there and inhabit the ever-expanding settlements.  Life seemed to stop as the bus carefully manoeuvred around a tight corner for what seemed an eternity, the passengers looking down at us as we stared blankly back.  I don’t know what I was feeling at the time.  I only remember staring.

Shortly after, we arrived in Hebron; the transition from the camp can be likened to that of ‘the village’ and Mumbai – it’s the only thing I can think of.  It’s very busy and the bright yellow taxis are eye-catching.  What came next was a long walk as we passed an ATM, far and few between, and quite an impressive football stadium, which took me by surprise.  We arrived at PSD – Partners for Sustainable Development (I think), an organisation that works in a range of sectors such as education and health.  This was to be the location of one of Dan’s projects but today, it was the final day of a summer camp that PSD had organised and we were soon in the company of a bunch of excited kids who were painting the Palestinian flag.  They were wearing blue jackets that displayed the PSD logo and I remember one kid who seemed to be concealed within his jacket – at least ten sizes too big for him – it was the cutest thing and plus, they all have the most amazing eyes! Wow. It was no surprise that we had a warm welcome – Palestinian hospitality is something that I struggle to express in words; it is something that needs to be felt, experienced, and even then, it leaves you questioning what you have done to earn so much respect.  Palestinian hospitality caters for its guests purely for the pleasure of being hospitable; nothing more.  They want nothing in return. Nothing.  A gentleman briefly told us what the organisation does and later, our coordinator was quite unfairly put in charge of judging the best painting, smothered by children for whom losing was not an option. 

Since 1997, Hebron has been divided into two sectors: H1 and H2.  Our next destination was in H2 where we were meeting with a Palestinian activist group called ‘Youth against Settlements’.  This part of Hebron is really intense and to me, it always felt like something was about to go down.  It contains areas which are off limits to Palestinians such as Shuhada Street, recently renamed ‘Apartheid Street’ in protest of the Israeli occupation.  IDF presence in H2 is palpable and it was such an intimidating experience when I first crossed the checkpoint to enter Shuhada Street.  The soldier who checked me was definitely younger than me and I could’ve sworn he was oblivious to what he was doing; it was almost robotic.  Shuhada Street is such a sad state of affairs – closed shortly after the 2^nd Intifada – rendering hundreds of shops out of business.  It’s just like a deserted ghost town with very few people to be seen.  Palestinians are strictly prohibited from going there and cannot go near neighbouring settlements without a special permit.  I was so relieved that I would not be the one making this journey every other day because with my face and no easily identifiable Brits to keep me company, I think the students would be missing a teacher.  After a mini trek up a hill, we got to the place where two members of our group would be teaching and arguably the most breathtaking view in the whole of Hebron.  We allowed ourselves to get lost as we sat on a wall that bordered the house.  The guys we met were really cool, always smiling.  Next door is a settlement and it was the first time we got this close to one – the guarding soldiers asserting their presence and it was sad to see the Palestinians become accustomed to them – the kind of strength only Palestinians possess.

Next, we visited the Civic Association, the intended location for Huw’s classes.  As soon as we were made aware that the fella running the show there was called Aladin, we knew we were in for a treat and boy did he deliver.  He was just so funny and had the most infectious smile; I found it difficult to take him seriously at times.  He insisted that I had Arab blood, something I became quickly accustomed to as introductions usually followed the same pattern.  Aladin was just another Palestinian who had learnt to perfect his smile.  On a more serious note, the grief in his face was soon apparent as he sat back, his voice softening:

“Many youth go to Israel and are affected by their way of life and they forsake Islam.  Some are not affected but others go because the biggest factor in Hebron is danger.  They [IDF soldiers] hassle the youth to break unity; some [Palestinians] are firm but they [IDF or Israel] are a dangerous disease.”

He goes on to say that it takes him 20 minutes by road to make the 1 km journey home, which should take only a few minutes, again highlighting the crude attempt to break spirit.  And that’s what it’s all about: the tedious waiting in checkpoints, the restrictions, even the airport security I had to endure, all seemingly set in place to slowly pick away at your patience so you eventually accept the occupation as a normality. 

As we make our way outside, I notice the dense wire nets that stretch over us with large rocks and other items resting on top of them, weighing them down.  This is an indication of the relationship that Palestinians share with their settler neighbours who make their presence known.  The dense housing is a cause for anxiety.  We meet K, a descendent of Bedouins, who leads us up to a flat.  It is the home of another of Simon’s friends, where I remain at edge the whole time.  We are shown a video depicting IDF soldiers manhandling a guy after a recent protest.  It’s one thing cringing at violent imagery from our comfy homes in the UK but being there, around the corner from where the incident took place, and with the manhandled individual in the same room – it was just surreal.  And then when we lost power, a regular occurrence no one told me about, I could swear I peed a little.

K, our guide to the house then accompanied us to ‘Haram Ibrahimi’ – Tomb of the Patriarchs, the 1000 year old masjid that enshrines the tombs of Ibrahim, Is’haq, Ya’qoob and their wives (A.S).  There, I also saw a magnificent wooden pulpit, which K tells me was donated to the haram by Salahuddin Ayyoubi.  In contrast, it was difficult not to notice the holes in the pillars and the crumbling plaster, a painful reminder of the massacre of ‘94 where scores of worshippers were murdered.  As a result, the building has been divided into two sections, one for Muslim worshippers and the other for Jewish worshippers.

After we leave, K tells me about some of the dangers that the locals have to face on a daily basis. It pains me to hear about a child who had acid thrown in his eyes and about water tanks being destroyed or contaminated with alcohol.  It is a harsh reminder of the reality the Palestinians face every day and something that played on my mind throughout that night.