What a day

Well what a day!

EAPPI the organisation that usually takes the school run in the morning was not here so we took the children to school at 7am which is a little early by my standards! We thought it passed off without incident but it turns out a teacher was hit by a rock and has now gone to hospital, the rocks that were thrown include this one with my hand by the side to show how large it is. In the afternoon from the same window as the rock and apples were thrown eggs were thrown at me and the children as I walked them home. The soldiers are quite good here and asked if I had seen the woman who threw it. They dislike being here I think for the most part.

Before this though we had gone up the hill as there were problems, Israeli children are currently on holiday and were having some kind of picnic going on in the olive groves which the Palestinians used to own but the Israelis seem to have 'acquired'. Anyway some of the children walking home from another school normally pass through this to get home. Today, however they were not allowed and despite us trying they had to go the very long way around which takes a lot longer. We phoned the police who said they should be allowed through but they were not allowed - the soldiers are scared of the settlers in effect and wouldn't allow the children through. We also called the DCO who said they would 'sort it out' but being the DCO didn't. The children's picnic was quite a site, about 50 children and 8-10 soldiers at any one time plus one settler who had a gun. Quite what this does to you growing up in this situation (and for the Palestinian kids who watched) I don't know.

On top of that I sat at a checkpoint with other activists for about 40 minutes with aman they were detaining for no reason that I could work out, apparently he 'wanted to be there'.

Now Mary, the local 75 year old activist has been detained, we are not sure if she is going to be arrested yet - on the charges of hitting a policeman apparently! We've called the police, the embassy and a few other groups to see what is happening but more news when it comes.

It strikes me that most of the soldiers don't really want to be here, in fact I would think that the majority of Israelis don't really want this settlement. Anyway Hanukkah is upon us, the children are on holiday and I'm sure this is going to the case for the next few days. I think its only a matter of time before someone here gets killed, not this week or next week but in the long run I think this place will simmer over, probably at a time when Israeli-Palestine violence is higher than it currently is now instead of the idiotic Palestine on Palestine violence at present.