The village of Tuwani doesn't have much in the way of amenities: apart from the school and the mosque, there's a wee shop and a petrol pump, and that's about it. For many other (indispensible) things, people head to Carmel or to Yatta. They have to take a dusty, unpaved track, full of bumps and potholes. From all around, you can see plumes of dust from vehicles using this road.
When we first arrived in Tuwani, this road was an obstacle course. Piles of paving slabs were being loaded into wheelbarrows by 12 year-old boys. Older teenagers and young men were smoothing the road surface and laying the slabs. Little children had set up rickety stalls along the side of the road and were handing out water and coffee to the workers and their admiring supporters.
A fair length of road had been improved - by hand, and (as I learned later) by volunteers. The town council wasn't involved. Then, the roadbuilders got hold of a small compactor and were doing a good job with it, so the army of occupation intervened.
A decent road is the kind of infrastructure that the IOF doesn't permit in Masafer Yatta. The policy is to make life as hard as possible for the inhabitants of the area.
Soldiers arrived to confiscate the machine; the locals rocked up to defend it.
Taking this picture I had a flashback to Calais. Same story, different country: the authorities enact policies which are a flagrant breach of human rights and international law. They threaten civilians, try to make witnessing and filming their actions difficult (establishing a perimeter at gunpoint) and the law enforcers illegally film civilians using their personal phones.
In Tuwani, the tension is palpable, knowing that a Palestian might get shot or arrested at any moment. However, the small boys kept on handing out water and coffee to the crowd - keeping up the morale of the protestors just as they had that of the workforce. Chairs were brought out, so witnesses could watch and film from the slopes by the road, while sipping their drinks.
That day, the IOF officer declared that his heart was softened by seeing all the hard work that had been done. He agreed not to confiscate the machine, but insisted that work stop until a permit was granted by the Israeli authorities. (The road is in Area B, nominally under joint control)
A week or so later, the issue flared up again, and an (Israeli-American?) activist was arrested.... (more info)
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