Usually, walls and fences inside Palestine are constructed in order to protect Israelis from Palestinians. But Suraiya, an old woman living alone in a house next to a settlement in the outskirts of Hebron would be relieved, if the fence bordering the settlement could effectively protect her. Young settler kids, approximately between 8 and 14 years old, destroyed parts of the fence on Tuesday afternoon, threw stones on the house destroying most of the windows. The next morning Israeli police told us that army would come to protect Suraiya and her house, but they only stopped at a sight about 200 m behind the fence and the kids (which continued their 'operations' all the time) and didn't intervene until sunset.

We stayed two nights at the house. The old woman was so scared that she didn't dare to sleep and spent all the night praying.

Occupation of a resident's house in Husan

In the night from friday to saturday at around 3 a.m. israeli soldiers occupied a house home to two families with 15 people and expelled the residents. I arrived in the following afternoon, 4 other ISMers were already there. When being asked about the reason, the soldiers told us that youths would frequently throw stones targeting the nearby road that leads to the settlement of Bitar Elit. The house is located on the main road of Husan, a village of 5000 souls near Bethlehem, and the soldiers closed the part of the road next to the house, which caused a detour of about 1km for cars as well as for pedestrians.

On Sunday morning something unexpected happened: A jew from Bitar Eilat settlement arrived and expressed his disagree with the army's actions. He also confirmed that there had never been an incident of stones thrown on the close-by road which he uses every day. It was not clear if it was because of the settler's complaint, but a few minutes later the army opened the road. Then at noon reporters from "al arabiya" and another arbic TV channel arrived and started filming and the soldiers closed the road again. Soon children arrived, on their way home from school. When they understandably started to raise their voices, the locals immediately calmed them down to avoid any violent reaction from the army, though the kids seemed a bit angry, but not aggressive. Finally, after about one hour they opened the road again.

At night, the director of the Khalil branch of the ministry of interior of Palestine, who is a resident of Husan, arrived and told us that he negotiated with the responsible army commander under mediation of the red cross, and was promised that the soldiers would leave still at this night, which eventually happened at 3.40 a.m.

Even if I try to put myself in the position of a hardcore zionist, I could not see a reason for the occupation of the house. Probably they wanted to find out about the attendance of the residents to take violent measures against the occupation, which turned out to be 0. Or they just wanted to show them who has the power and can ignore laws - palestinian, israeli or international ones - without any consequences.

I slept at the formerly occupied house and in the afternoon I took a walk in the beautiful surrounding of Husan. Together with one youth from the house I crossed a valley of stone terraces of vegetable fields and olive groves with a lot of springs emerging from caves in the slopes. Then we crossed a coniferous forest on top of the hill which marked the israeli border. I was a bit worried, rather about my companion than me. We took a rest at a recreation area where strollers passed by and boys made barbaque. Then on the way back a police car stopped us, but after I showed them my passport we could continue to cross the border again, illegally. He told me that he used to walk this path every night at around 4 a.m. on the way to his work in Jerusalem. Almost every Husani works or used to work in Israel or in one of the settlements and they have comparatively normal relations with some of the settlers.

Susya

After another olive picking day around Nablus I moved to Susiya in the very south of the West Bank. After the nakba the residents used to live in a cave, but later they were also expelled from there because the Israeli government declared it a national park. Now they live in simple tents of pitted plastic covers nearby. They are not allowed to build real houses, so one of the homes, which has concrete walls, is also covered with plastic because they're afraid that the army would destroy it.

The people are mainly raising sheeps, but their movement is very limited because most of their pasture is declared closed military zone. For the same reason, water supply from the surrounding wells is also hard. They used to live without electricity untill a group of israeli individuals installed solar cells. The settlement of Susiya is located about half an kilometer away, and soldiers in between are round the clock on watch.

On the day of my arrival, while I couldn't fall asleep at night, I got the stupid idea to take a walk on the road next to the tents and was stopped imediately by a passing by israeli military jeep. They took me to the next checkpoint on the border with Israel but released me after about 20 minutes, together with 4 palestinians who were captured 2 hours before me while crossing the border on foot ilegally after returning from work in Israel. The palestinians were picked up from a friend and wanted me to take to Susiya but in the night I had no idea how to go there and didn't want to wake up the people there, so they suggested to take me to the next (palestinian) police station in Yatta, so that the police should bring me home. I agreed, but I should have known, that the palestinian police is not allowed to enter the area of the tents (under administration of israeli military). So they decided to take me to the police headquarter in Khalil (Hebron), where I spent the night. It reminded me of police experiences in other arab countries: very friendly but slow and bureaucratic. The next day I was picked up by one villager, who brought my passport. I was uncomfortable for causing troubles on my first day.

During the five days I stayed, there wasn't really much to do. Soldiers occasionally shouted "bad words" at us, obviously bored and hoping for some "action", but the villagers stayed calm.

On thursday during the first rain since long time plenty of water entered some of the tents but the farmers were just happy that the sparse soil will soon serve more than just the remaining grass roots.

Finally on saturday I was called to go to Husan, where a house was occupied by the army.

More than one week has passed by in Nablus, fortunately it was not too exciting for me. Though I was in four different villages, everyday happened about the same.Just picking olives in the soft october sun, getting fed like kings by the local families, exchanging experiences with the other ISMers in the evening before I early felt asleep.

Somehow I've been always been one of the lucky ones, who went to places without any attacks. Two persons injured by stones thrown on them and a destroyed car were the main casualities suffered from settler attacks in the other villages covered by us where I haven't been yet.

Today, me and another ISMer started again picking in Zawata, but soon we were called to move to Kafr Qalil, next to the Huwara checkpoint. Yesterday, six villagers were injured by a crowd of approx. 30 settlers , using wooden sticks and fists, while they were harvesting very close to the settlement of Brachah (Maan News). The Rabbis for Human Rights - an israeli HR-organisation with whom we are cooperating - were accompanying them untill noon, but then they left (presumeably because of Sabbath) the place and the settlers felt confident to attack them. According to the villagers two soldiers were standing just 50 meters away, but did not interfere untill more soldiers arrived from a military base just 1 km away, what also took them about 20 minutes.

When we were there (and we stayed untill all farmers returned home), we could harvest without any incident, but the area was not as close to the settlement.

Actually the training was not as related to practice as I expected, I never felt really challenged and I still don't feel very well prepared to be up against violence, especially from settlers.

When it was finished, I moved with the next mini-bus to Nablus. At the moment the main activity there is to accompany palestenians harvesting their olives. They often face problems there, either with the army, settlers or both. Many groves are located in areas declared as military closed zones,and near to settlements there's the additional risk of indiscriminate attacks by israeli settlers. As I am new I decided to go to the place with the lowest danger, a village called Zawata. There's no settlement around but the groves are just behind a military road and officially the farmers are not allowed to enter there at all.

After we crossed that road today in the early morning, a jeep with 3 soldiers arrived, but luckily they were quite friendly and allowed us to pass after they recorded the ID-numbers. After that we could pick olives untill sunset without any other incident, and I enjoyed my first day out in the nature.

The more inpredictable situations occur at farmlands near to israeli settlements, especially because the settlers don't make any difference between palestinians and internationals, contrary to soldiers.

The way to Jerusalem

As the flights to Egypt are very cheap, I first landed in Marsa Alam on the southern coast on the Red Sea and then continued by bus straight to the border with Israel, with only a few breaks. The border crossing was not as difficult as I expected because of my numerous visas of countries with hostile relationship with Israel.

But when I was through I noticed that I arrived at the wrong time - friday afternoon - and as I didn't feel like spending the day on the beach of Eilat I tried to hitch-hike. Soon somebody took me some 20km further north, but then no car stopped untill sunset. Due to the long overnight bus drives I also was quite tired and lay down on the asphalt which resulted in beeing woken up twice by the local ambulance alarmed by worried passer-bies. Finally also police arrive and told me to find a place to sleep in the settlement nearby what I also tried to do , but nobody answered the bell at the gate of the enclosed village so I slept in the desert.

Fortunately I didn't have to wait so long on the next morning untill Eli and Hila, a generous young israeli couple stopped for me. Actually I planned to go straight to Jerusalem but they convinced me to follow them to their home in Tel Aviv. While walking around in the city center I decided that it's not really interesting here and asked the next Habasha about ethiopian restaurants nearby. They were all closed due to sabbath so they invited me for lunch at their home. I had a good time with them, but somehow they had quite an anti-arab attitude.

In the evening Eli drove me to Qdumim, a jewish settlement inside the West Bank. "We are normal people.", the settlers said when Eli told them that I would volunteer for ISM. From there I got a lift with one of his friends to Jerusalem, where I spent the night at the Palm Hostel near the old city.

The next morning I met there with Hisham, who leads the ISM-training.I still had time untill the afternoon, then I would move to a palestinian home in East Jerusalem. So I still walked around in the breathtaking old city and the more modern center along Jaffa road. A marathonman who claimed to run 2:04 showed me the way to the next ethiopian local.

The home where I should stay the next two days was one of 28 households in the same area that is supposed to be evicted. The family lives there since they were expelled from the West Bank in the 50's but somehow jewish settlers found out that their ancestors had bought their ground under ottoman rule 150 years ago and the government seems to believe them. I stayed there with two other activists. It's not much happening there despite a guard looking around about once every hour. Once the jewish neighbour passed by and I greeted her, which angered Layla, one of my fellow activists, who volunteers since almost two years. There would be no reason to be friendly,as they would always provoke the family, she explained. In my opinion it should also be the activist's job to melt the ice, no matter how "evil" the settlers are, but from then I kept quiet. Yet I'm really not sure if I'm partial enough to join the movement. However, I can stop at any time and simply make a backpacking tour as usual which also would be interesting.Tomorrow I'll attend the training in Ramallah for two days and then will decide what to do.