This morning we began the day by visiting two more human rights groups working in Bethlehem and the surrounding area. After lunch we traveled to the city of Hebron where we will be staying and working out of the CPT Hebron office/apartment for the next several days. It is quite obvious that Hebron is an occupied city, where there is both Palestinian land, homes, and businesses intermixed with Israeli/Jewish settlements. There are heavily armed Israeli soldiers and Palestinian police officers all over and you pass through many checkpoints as you walk around the Old City. This afternoon many of us went out on patrol with the CPT members who are assigned to the Hebron office. We were checked several times by the Israeli soldiers and interacted with many of the Palestinians who seem to be greatly appreciative of CPT's presence. The soldiers quite less.
After patrol we enjoyed a wonderful dinner with CPT's neighbor, Zleekha Mustaseb, who runs a kindergarten for the Palestinian children in the area. She provided us with "Maqluba," a traditional blessing meal of chicken, vegetable, and rice.
Today we received some very sad news. The Bedouin village which we visited on Saturday, where we were served tea and food in many of the homes, was completely destroyed by the Israeli government early this morning. They executed the order with 1,300 police officers, helicopters, water canons, and bulldozers, demolishing all their homes, and displacing approx. 300 Bedouins, many of them young children who we interacted with on Saturday. We have been reading of the account on many of the international news services, including CNN, which you can check out by going to CNN.com and searching for "Bedouins Evicted from Village in Southern Israel." A sobering reminder that we find ourselves in a country where land is being taken by force in many different areas from many different peoples.
I close at the end of a long day with others waiting to get on the computer and looking forward to a good night's rest and the day ahead tomorrow.
With the Peace of Christ
Tuesday, 7/21, 11:00 p.m. Hebron time
Wow, that is extremely discouraging. I googled some stories on Bedouin village destruction on the web from the BBC etc. The stories sure hit hard when you are linked in some way. Thanks for sharing your stories here, Dick.
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