Work Goes On

- - -

The moon has come up, and so has a chilly wind. We are huddled, wrapped in blankets, on a hillside, with the sheep and chickens in sheds all around us. A baby is crawling across the terrace, the silence broken by occasional jet - probably heading for Gaza. Settlers have sent an annoying, whirring, flashing drone over to check on us. When the dogs bark, we all sit up in alarm. We pace and group together tensing for an attack. We sit back down, until another warning comes in from a neighbor. A car is moving in the area. Looks like the madman who raided this farm yesterday. False alarm. Then another one.

This goes on for hours.

"We" are a Mexican, an Irishman and myself, alongside a Palestinian family. We've been asked to support this family under threat from Zionist extremists.

What support can we give when our governments are cheering on these massacres?

- --

The sun came up and we're still here. But when I look at the flag above us, I feel nothing but sorrow and dread.

We are in the village of Tuba, Masafer Yatta. Three extended families herd sheep and goats up here.

Omar's parents were driven out of Qaryatein, a village perhaps 10kms away, in 1948. Omar and his sons currently herd around 70 sheep. They used to have around 300, but the economic crisis due to the Ukraine war has compounded the problem of settler harassment and they can no longer live as they used to.

Illegal settlers have built on two sides of the village. Shepherds can only go out on a fraction of the lands once available. It used to be possible to buy in fodder to compensate for the loss of grazing lands, but purchasing feed and straw has now become too expensive.

Over the past week, terrorist settlers have carried out several destructive raids on Tuba.

Sheep, feeders and gas canisters were stolen 2 days ago. Just yesterday, they planted the Israeli flag on a hillock. The raids will intensify, and they will probably set up an outpost very soon. Another act of ethnic cleansing has been publicly announced. There is only the handful of us here, standing against this evil.