Bethlehem, Etzion DCL, Sun 14.2.10, Morning

7:00 AM, Bethlehem - Checkpoint 300: we meet many workersoutside and the report of the crossing is OK. Inside we meet our friends fromthe EAPPI. Four windows are open.The EAPPI people report a crossing 1500 peoplebefore 6:30, from 6:30-7:00 another 256 cross and in the next 15 minutesanother 100. Altogether 1856 people crossed and the hall is empty. This numberof people is not up to the usual. Evidently many people prefer crossing atA-Zayyam because of the many problems this terminal has been having.

8:15 AM, Etsion DCL:  people enter in small groups,10-13 at a time. By 9:30 there are very few people left waiting in the entrancehall. We leave.

At the CP300 we met Jan from the EAPPI who had astory of her own to tell. I am including it in this report. Jan also sent uspictures which I didn't manage to copy.

Building a home – and a wall

On the outskirts of the village of Asira is a fine new house – a work in progress. Jamal and Nahla Ahmad have saved up to build it for their young family, Ayman, Mohammed, Malak and Zena . Jamal belongs to the village. Nahla’s family are in Jordan. Now she is working hard at making a home here. Although the upper floor is unfinished, and much of the garden is a building site, she has planted flowering shrubs and a vine, and has plans for fruit trees. From the terrace you can see the village below, and there is a breathtaking view north and westwards, towards the invisible Green Line. Far away you can see Tel Aviv.

But on the hill behind their house a row of red-roofed houses marks the edge of the illegal settlement of Yizhar. In the last few months the settlers have come down the hill, and attacked the Ahmad family home: breaking windows, trying to wrench out safety grills, lighting a fire on the front steps, with the family inside the house. They have used Molotov cocktails and CS gas; they shout threats and they mark their territory with graffiti stars of David.

Jamal is a driver and is often away from home. Nahla and the children are afraid. Now the family have stopped work on the inside of their home to build a high wall all round it. Nahla says ‘Know the neighbour before you build the house.’