Visit in Shuafat refugee camp
On New Year’s Eve, Dieter and I went to Jerusalem in order to visit Shuafat refugee camp. I had not been there since May and I was really looking forward to going back.
We drive through the checkpoint into the camp and get off at the bus station. It takes us five minutes to walk to the centre for youth and women. Sohaila and Baha, both teachers at the youth centre, are in the teacher’s room and it’s amazing to see them again! I’ve written emails to Sohaila and we’ve missed each other. Baha, who lives in the camp himself, has been to Italy last summer for 24 days with 12 children from the camp. He shows us pictures and videotape from the stay. He says it’s hard for the children to come back to the overcrowded camp and the conditions they live in after having seen how people live in Italy. Baha gives us a tour around the camp, as Dieter has not been here before. We get a tail of children behind us. It can be dangerous to walk around here alone as people here rarely meet any outsiders, other than Israeli soldiers. But Baha is working with almost all the youth and children in the camp, and knows most people. In the outskirts of the camp you can see how the separation wall is closing in the camp, and on the hill just behind it is a large settlement. The houses in the camp have too many floors, which make the buildings unsafe. About 35 000 people live here, but only half of them have the blue Jerusalem ID card, which makes it possible for them to leave the camp sometimes. The streets are narrow and filled with garbage. Back in the centre we take part in Sohaila’s art class, where the children give us cards saying “Happy new year!.” Then we take part in Baha’s drama class. The stereo is not working today, so there is no dabka dancing this time…
Visit in Beit Ummar
Thursday we leave to Beit Ummar, a fifteen minutes drive from Hebron in the direction of Bethlehem. When we arrive the servis stops outside a large gate, which now controls access from the main road into the village, and we continue on foot. At the entrance, there is a tall watchtower, and the soldiers standing around the tower and the gate are pointing their guns at us. Inside we meet Mousa from Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP). He takes us to his house, where we have lunch while he tells us about PSP. They started up two years ago, and the organization consists of Palestinian, Israeli and international activists. Some of their actions are to plant olive trees, remove roadblocks and cut the fence going through Palestinian land. As so many other villages, Beit Ummar has great problems with Israeli settlers. The settlement of Karmi Tsur is close to the village, and the wall, in the shape of an electronic fence, goes between the settlement and the village. Mousa takes us for a walk in the area. Large parts of agricultural land next to the fence lie dead as the farmers are prevented from working on their land because it is close to the settlement.
For more info: http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/
Demonstration in Um Salamone
Friday I took part in the weekly demonstration in Um Salamone, a village south of Bethlehem. Every Friday there is a non-violent demonstration against the wall which is to be built across the village. Katariina and I go to the office of Holy Land Trust, a Palestinian organization in Bethlehem. Together we travel to Um Salamone. This day is special as more people than usual are supposed to be there, as Fatah has decided to celebrate their 43rd anniversary with the demonstrators this Friday. Last Friday, Christmas was the theme and five men dressed up like Santa Claus. 
We arrive in the village and about 200 persons are there, mostly locals. There is also lots of press, in addition to about five or six Israeli military vehicles, around thirty soldiers and a couple of police vehicles. On an open field, a large group of elderly men and some kids are gathered. A man in front of them starts singing the prayers into a microphone, and they perform their prayer while we watch them. When they’re finished we all move towards the valley where the wall is to be built. Palestinian flags and Fatah flags are waving in the crowd and a couple of riders on horses take part. In the valley, where not so long ago olive trees were planted, the bulldozers now have ruined everything and instead the wall’s foundations lie here. But we don’t get that far. After a fifteen minutes walk along the road, with the soldiers pushing people into the side of the road, we are all stopped from going down to the valley. It starts to rain, we gather and listen to a speech before we all turn back and walk to the village. The soldiers are preparing to shoot teargas, but it remains quiet today, and the non-violent demonstration can finish in peace.
Susya
Saturday we spent the day in the village of Susya, south of Hebron. We take a servis to Yatta, where Nasser picks us up. After about 30 minutes driving on bumpy roads, we get to a place where about five or six tents are gathered. Around 20 persons live here. On the top of the hill behind them live settlers in nice houses. They have watchtowers and see everything that happens in the small village. They often come down and harass the people living there, as they would like to have the land to themselves. Some years ago, one settler shot and killed a man from the village, says Mamoud, Nasser’s brother. We are being served tea. The people here have a great sense of humour despite their difficult life. We laugh all the time of jokes in a mixture of English and Arabic. Abed Rahman, 14 years old, takes us for a walk in the area. We walk through a field of olive trees before we come to an area where there is only the bottom part of the olive trees left. A couple of weeks ago the settlers came down and cut down 26 olive trees. We look up on the hill. The settlers have soldiers there to look after them. We go over to the other side of the mountain, where Israeli peace activists from the organization Tayush, are digging a well together with Mamoud, Nasser and their brothers. It used to be an old wine press, but now they want to gather rainwater here. It has rained less than usual in the last months and they need water for their land. We are being served homemade bread, rice and soup out on the field, before we drink coffee in one of the tents in the village. Then Nasser drives us back to Yatta, where the family has a house to go to in case of extreme weather conditions. After meeting even more of the family members, a servis takes us back to Hebron.
I work for the Norwegian Church Aid as an Ecumenical Accompanier serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained herein are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer Norwegian Church Aid or the WCC. If you would like to publish the information contained here or disseminate it further, please first contact the EAPPI Communications Officer (eappi-pc (at) jrol.com) for permission. Thank you.
