Navigating through Tel Rumeida, Hebron
This truck serves as a boundary between "Settler Land" and "Palestinian land" in what has become an unspoken understanding between the two groups.
Within the Tel Rumeida area, located inside H2, Israeli Settlers have steadily been staking their claim to land by occupying Palestinian houses. The result is a mélange of Palestinian and Israeli houses, interspersed with each other. As dusk approaches on a balmy Friday afternoon, it is quiet in the neighbourhood and our guide leads us deftly along rocky paths, and under low hanging vines. We are careful not to use certain roads, as there is an unspoken understanding that these roads are reserved for settlers, the use of which (by Palestinians) might insight more animosity and perhaps violence in a tense area.
To the untrained eye, Tel Rumeida resembles a sleepy working class neighbourhood, yet there are eerie signs of an underlying conflict between Tel Rumeida's inhabitants. Barbed wire obstructs certain pathways, and Hebrew graffiti spray painted on crumbling walls reads, "Death to the Arabs." On the roof of one particular single-storey Palestinian house, two Israeli military posts have been erected, nestling under the branches of an overhanging tree. Although we cannot see him, we are informed that there is a soldier inside one of these towers, silently observing. As we leave the area there is an unnerving sense of being under surveillance, not only by the military and security cameras, but by the settlers and Palestinians who watch and wait wearily.
