a prairie voice: Reflections on Hebron

All Ecumenical Accompaniers (EA's) are encouraged to visit other locations on the West Bank where EA's are located. The Hebron team of five graciously hosted two of us from Tulkarm. During the placement visit we stayed with the Hebron team and shadowed the team as they went about their daily activities. A very important activity for them is to be present in certain areas when the Palestinian children go back and forth to school. This is because the children have to walk from their homes through an area patrolled by Israeli soldiers to get to their school. One of the accompaniers from Norway, Nikolai, is a good soccer player and the children love to play with him as they are on their way to and from school.

Accompaniers meet the children again for their return trip home. Of interest is the fact that the children of settlers are transported directly to and from their schools in modern buses with darkened windows.

Some of the settlers occupy the tops of buildings in old Hebron. To protect themselves from having garbage thrown on them, Palestinians have put up fencing to cover the street in front of their shops.

Everything in Hebron seemed very complex and confusing to me. The old city used to be a thriving marketplace. Now it still has some shops but hardly any customers. The shop owners are used to seeing the Hebron EA’s as they daily walk to the city and they welcome them with offers of tea. There are shops with beautiful handmade Palestinian products carefully crafted by skilled Palestinian women.

There again…..lots of products but hardly any business.

There are four Israeli settlements in the middle of the older part of the city. Due to this, there are lots of checkpoints and Israeli military presence.

There are portions of the city where Palestinian people are not allowed to be and streets that are clearly divided as to who can walk on a certain part of the street. A few years ago many Palestinian businesses were closed up and sealed off by the Israeli military.

It looks like a ghost town with only a few Palestinian families living in flats above the closed business section.

We were invited to visit the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) in Hebron. They work cooperatively with EAPPI and share responsibility for accompanying Palestinian school children. They have provided service in Hebron since 1985. When there are problems, EA’s regularly contact other organizations for assistance and planning. It was good to learn about the cooperative efforts of many people in this very vulnerable and complicated area.

Another focus of the Hebron team has been to maintain contact and provide a presence in the Hebron Hills. Two of the Hebron team had just returned after spending a couple days in a village close to Hebron. The team spends considerable time each day walking around the area, talking with the Palestinian people and standing in solidarity with the them. It’s not uncommon for soldiers to arrive in a village and use tear gas even for a non-violent demonstration. Tear gas is shot from a gun and can be harmful if a person is directly hit by the container full of tear gas. It was an unreal feeling to watch this being used for no apparent reason. One of my EA friends took the picture of tear gas being shot and gave it to me to use in my blog.