Denied access. Again.

A settler boy tries to block Yehuda's filming

Breaking the Silence tried to enter the city again today. Unsuccessfully. About 40 settlers blocked the bus with cars, prams and children. Some of the women sat down in front of it and started reading the Torah, whilst other men were walking around with their cameras and their guns trying to intimidate the tour group. The police and army wandered around aimlessly like confused chickens.

Female settlers reading the Torah in front of the bus

My team and I were waiting for the bus to enter Hebron so we could join the tour, as we were unable to finish it the last time we tried. Quite a few EAs from other placements were on the bus this time, we could see them peering out through the bus windows, looking bemused.

A young settler had travelled from Jerusalem with the sole purpose of stopping the bus from entering Hebron. He came over and told us that we could never understand the settlers since we are not Jewish. Then he expressed a wish to hang us from the trees in the nearby field. We politely pointed out that the field, and consequently the trees, belonged to a Palestinian aquaintance of ours. A little annoyed by our resistance to be willingly executed, he exclaimed "Go to China! There they shoot people like you." The young man seemed rather fond of China and a little disappointed with Israel. "Israel is crazy," he insisted, "they don't shoot you Nazis."

A young settler from Jerusalem amuses Jean-Marie and Johannes

After two hours of back and forth between Yehuda and the police (very similar to the last display), the bus turned around and once again went to the South Hebron Hills with three police cars on its tail. We could only wave to our colleagues and smile with a shrug of surrender. Maybe next time.