South Hebron: Installing Toilets and Getting Stoned by Settlers

Today, I went with a small group from ICAHD to check out our building site in South Hebron, which was a bit crazier than I expected.  We went with an Israeli man named Ezra, who seems to be a star of South Hebron.  Everyone (the Palestinians and the IDF) knew him, and he will soon be incarcerated for assaulting a police officer while trying to prevent a house demolition.  We first went to Carmel, a small Bedouin village in extremely close proximity to an ideological settlement (by ideological, i mean the crazy violent religious ones).  When we got there, the IDF was excorting a group of Palestinians shepards and their flock off of their own land: a legal loophole states that, when Palestinian land is out of use for three years, it is turned over to the military.  Of course, shepards don't actually build property on their land, they only use it for grazing.  Yet, since they had not built anything on the land, it was being turned over to the military, and subsequently, the settlers.

Ezra argued with the police for quite a bit, repeatedly calling them war criminals.  Apparently, his goal is to be sued for libel, so that the IDF will have to prove in court that they are not war criminals.  This, of course, did not stop the police from removing the shepards.

In theabove picture, you can see the scale of Carmel.  The tents to the far right are the Bedouin village, in existence since the 1948 war (the families were refugees).  To the far left are the settlement houses.  In the middle are the shepards on land that once belonged to them.

Anxela, Hanadi, and Sahar reconsider: should we really be building a house here?

We drove through the settlement to take down lisence plate numbers of trucks (presumably for a hypothetical lawsuit against the Carmel settlement), and this settler chased us and threw stones at our car.  It was not a fun experience!

Carmel villagers examine Ezra's truck: you can see the dent from the stone, right below the mirror.  To Ezra it wasn't a big deal, since this same car was turned over by settlers last week!

The village in the foreground, with the settlement in the background. 

Again, the settlement to the right of the village.  Interestingly, all of the settlement houses are built without any windows facing the Palestinian village.  The two communities are so close that the Palestinians sometimes hang their clothes to dry on the settlement fence!

We sat down in a tent to meet with the families.  There are two major families in the village, divided into 21 smaller families.  We had to get permission from both family patriarchs to continue with our build.  These villagers had a house demolished recently, and tell us that they want to make sure the newly constructed house is not demolished.  We had to tell them that, unfortunately, we had no way to guarantee that.  All we could do was build the house, bring media attention (which would hopefully discourage another demolition), and provide them with a lawyer to help postpone execution of the demolition orders. 

They proposed using the construction money for something more useful than a house, and we settled on toilets.  We could build small toilets for 5,000 NIS (about $1,500) each.  We would need to build 21, one for each family, so that we didn't have to prioritize families (also becase it is forbidden for women to use another family's toilet).  Apparently, a humanitarian aid group recently built toilets for every village in the immediate area except this one, because they feared it would be demolished by settlers.  We agreed to take the risk.

This tiny boy looked incredibly aged and world-weary, as if he had been through more in his 2 years than I have in 19. 

The video camera in this picture was given to the community by the human rights group B'tselem, to record abuse from settlers.

The family patriarch shows me the site of the demolished house.  He spoke poetically about the family's hardships: "They arrested my son, they demolished my house, there is no justice!"  He lamented that the rest of the world did not care.  "Tell Obama about this," he told me.  I promised him that I would try.

Then, we had to visit the other side of the village to meet with the other family.  The toilet plan had to go through both family heads before being approved. 

Because the family is Bedouin, they have been ignored by the greater Palestinian community.  A few months ago, the IDF set off a controlled explosion in the nearby desert, and afterwards a child from this village wandered onto the site, picking up a piece of scrap metal and exposing himself to toxic chemicals.  He was refused at a nearby Palestinian hospital in Yatta for being Bedouin, and was not treated until his entire leg was burnt and blackened.

We next visited the town of Twani, which holds a major Palestinian school.  Children from nearby villages have to pass by the settler outpost, Habat Ma'on, and have sometimes been physically harassed.  Humanitarian groups are stationed in this village to escort kids to school.  Seeking cover, they usually go over the hill and through the forest pictured above.

A new school just started construction, and there is already a demolition order from the Ministry of the Interior.

Afterwards, we visited the town of Mnezel, where farmers have trouble getting to their land due to the separation barrier.  Three years ago was a series of demolitions, and the rebuilt houses are still standing.

My new best friend, a dog named Bush who was adopted from Susya settlers by Susya Palestinians.

An example of the lovely toilets that we will be building!