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Tonight we have been sleeping near the settlers' road which leads
to the Abu Holi traffic lights. It is a little village of about
15 small houses with corrugated iron roofs lived in by 200 to 250
Bedouins belonging to the same family clan. The original family
was expelled from the city of Beer Sheva in 1948 and made refugees
in the Sinai desert; they were then compelled by Nasser's Egyptians
to move to the Gaza Strip.
The path going to the village winds between fields of maize and
tomatoes.
Along a stretch of about 2 km the rows of prickly pears, which used
to flank the road, were knocked down by tanks a few days ago, to
allow unimpeded to the many control towers and telecameras mounted
up on high posts along the settlers' bypass road. After passing
the stretch of road flanked by the flattened prickly pears we continue
through a deep, narrow channel which seems to have been a river
bed before the settlers dried it up by diverting the flow of water
to their own settlements.
The owner of the house where we are guests is 28 years old. He sent
his family to the other part of the road after some soldiers entered
the house, searched him and asked him if he had seen any movement
by the Palestinian Armed Resistance. It is now 7 months since he
saw his wife and children although they do not live many meters
away as the crow flies.
As we walk along, O (our guest) point out to me along the way the
remains of dwelling places, now heaps of rubbish, and other things.
He explains to me that some Palestinians have been killed there
by soldiers who come into the area almost every night. You can still
see the signs of shooting on the trees along the channel. On the
ground there is a white woman's shoe with a split heel.
A little further on there is a little girl who has climbed a very
high tree to pick the fruit.
The village rises up out of the level ground. It is dotted with
fig trees and olive orchards. Almost every house has one; the olive
trees near the road have been completely destroyed, the ones growing
in the orchards near the houses are all very young.
We have hardly entered when the children come to meet us full of
curiosity. On the bypass road (about 100-150 houses) there is hardly
any traffic, mainly military vehicles, because it will soon be the
beginning of the Shabbat (Jewish Sunday).
On all sided of the village the men have built high sand embankments
(at least 20 to 25 meters high) to prevent the bulldozers from entering
the village. Unfortunately, tanks can easily fire on their houses
from the road while the soldiers can enter on foot and with jeeps
when they want.
Not long ago they blew up one of the houses and all the neighbouring
ones were damaged by the force of the explosion: on that occasion
they also killed two baby donkeys a few months old - an act of cruelty
which was incomprehensible to the Bedouins and, I must say, to me
too.
While the adults were telling us all these things sitting in a circle
under a big fig tree, the children were munching raw cucumbers.
A jeep stops on the edge of the road and a soldier observers the
gathering through binoculars.
Later on we move from under the fig tree to go to the courtyard
of a house where they offer us coffee in the Bedouin style. Even
there we feel ourselves under observation from a remote controlled
tele-camera mounted on a high post. There are no places where prying
eyes cannot observe, record, photograph and file the simple life
of these people.
The coffee boils on a fire prepared inside a brazier and we are
served with minute amounts in tiny cups. It can be sipped once or
twice but never three times. It must not be taken with the left
hand, only with the right. If you would like more you have only
to move the little cup and someone will immediately pour you out
another few drops. It has no sugar but it is very aromatic and good.
We are finishing to sip our coffee while one of the young man tells,
amid the general laughter, of an occasion when they fired into the
house at the very moment when he was doing his duty with his young
wife and he was so frightened he had to interrupt the coitus. You
can't even make love in this country!!!
It is already evening when we hear a voice from a megaphone fixed
on a white jeep. It is the voice of an officer responsible for the
safety of the settlers. Every evening he informs the population
that a curfew is in force from 20.00 to 6.00 and that no one can
leave the house till morning. Anyone doing so would endanger his
life. "Get into your house, hurry. Ialla al beit. Get into your
house or we start firing."
After this last blood curdling intimidation (at least for a paunchy
European like me) we get into the house where we share a frugal
meal with our Bedouins friends. Even here world football imposes
its boring rituals!
A little child sitting with us keeps on repeating that Apache helicopters
kill little children and their mummies are crying for them; she
must have repeated it at least twenty times while her friend, a
little boy even smaller, gets annoyed with Sharon, repeating his
name and touching his forehead with a finger.
After dinner a woman goes back home, stopping for a moment at the
window to let us know that a tank has just positioned itself on
the road and will 'cover' the village for the whole night.
However the night passes peacefully - only some distant fires but
nothing serious. In the morning we all say goodbye and an elderly
man ask us not to forget them, to speak of them, and to return.
Greetings
Maurizio Cucci (White Peace Berets)
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