August 6th - another visit to the Bedouin Camp.
We visited late in the afternoon with the students, and for what appeared to be for no apparent reason, two armoured vehicles from the Israeli army stopped traffic up and down the only road to the camp, for at least an hour. This is an every day occurrence here. They want the land here & access to the area around it to extend their illegal settlements. Settlements which are actually on Abu Dis land - illegal according to INTERNATIONAL law!
They eventually let traffic move ONLY when they realised a minibus had our fellow friends of Cadfa - the Arabic speaking group on board, many nationalities including English, Spanish & Dutch ladies, who were joining us for an evening meal at the Bedouin camp.
However, not long after letting them through the soldiers fired 3 shots of teargas just below us in the valley .. luckily it didn’t affect us, but was this a reminder of who has power? Who has control here?
I felt really intimidated by it - as if they were saying “we will never let Palestine rest easy”.. this is a constant psychological torture, to break the Palestinian people.
The children just got on with playing and made the most of their time here, in one of the very few playgrounds available to them.
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