One week in...

So I've been here a little over seven days so far, and it's been quite a week. I arrived at the airport in Tel Aviv and got through security without any real trouble, except for the fact that they didn't give me a visa...that caused a slight hassle for the next few days, but it's a story for another time. What I really want to talk about is my first experience traveling in the West Bank.

On Thursday I went to Hebron, with three Norwegians who are here, one of whom is working with the same organization as I am, Stop the Wall. Hebron is a Palestinian city that's south of Ramallah and Bethlehem, and it used to be the economic centre of the West Bank. It was really something to see this city, to see the reality of living under occupation, a reality that Palestinians have to face every day. Hebron is surrounded by Israeli settlements - which are illegal under international law - and in addition to these surrounding settlements, there's also one right in the middle of the city. The settlement in the middle of the city has about 400-600 people living in it, and interestingly, many of them are from Brooklyn. These are some of the most fanatical settlers around, as most of them are heavily armed, and there has been lots of settler violence directed at Palestinians. Maybe the best example of this fanatical violence came in 1994, when a settler barged into the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, and opened fire on the Palestinians who were praying there. 29 people were killed, and 125 were wounded. Also interesting to note that these 400-600 settlers have some 1500 soldiers stationed there to "protect" them.

Nothing of that scale has happened since then, but violence is still common. For example, the Palestinians had to cover their market with wire mesh because settlers would throw rocks and garbage down onto them from the buildings above (see the picture to the right). Now that the rocks don't work in getting rid of the Palestinians below, settlers have been known to pour boiling water or hot oil out of their buildings instead. The inhumanity of it is shocking. Inhumanity is the best way I can describe it I think, because it's like the settlers don't even consider Palestinians to be human beings. It's really unbelievable to see.

To make matters worse, with the the establishment and expansion of the settlements around Hebron, the city that was once the economic centre of the West Bank has now been economically devastated. What was once a bustling market with thousands of people going through it every day probably now has about 90% of its shops closed and boarded up. So in addition to the physical violence that's always a threat to the Palestinians, we also see economic violence in Hebron that forces people from their homes because they can't make a living in their hometown. Add onto this the psychological impact of growing up in a place like that, where you're constantly under threat...it's really hard to imagine...and this is just one city.

As hard as it is to see this kind of stuff, this is the reason why I came to Palestine - to see the reality on the ground. And this is happening all over the West Bank, so in my time here I'll have plenty more opportunity to experience occupation in a first-hand way.