I joined Peacebearer today, 2nd January 2025.
The weather was funny today: chilly, windy, and as sunny and cloudless as summertime. There was a biting cold in the shade that disappeared entirely when you stood in the sun.
We delivered sacks of winter clothing to families in the South Hebron Hills.
Salem welcomed us in Massafer Yatta with a breakfast of Labneh and Zaatar and sweet tea– although he knows now not to add sugar in the cups for the volunteers that come and go, we’re not as sweet toothed as the Palestinians! In his garden just up the hill, he has already planted broccoli for the winter. There were cucumbers and tomatoes in the summer.
All of this could have looked like idyllic village life.
In England and Bulgaria we seem to be craving a return to life’s simplicities: to grow your own veg, to live in a house on the hill, to keep a goat or two perhaps even a sheep! Except there is no work in the Occupied Territories, no permits to get work in Israel, and there are radical, extremist and violent settlers who terrorize the village. And if you want to leave, where would you go?
Salem’s son came to ask us questions. He is four and asks a lot of questions. He went to the sea once or twice. He loved it, Salem translates. He asked us if we lived by the sea. He wants to go swimming.
After breakfast, we piled into the dusty pick up which we had already loaded with donated clothes, shoes and even a table strapped to the roof. We flew down the tarmacked road, quickly reaching makeshift gravel paths built in the shadow of the night. Our pace was much slower now and our heads kept hitting the ceiling as the car jerked up and down on the rocks.
My reflection from today:
Firstly, the way to lasting peace is a long walk where each step requires a meeting and breaking of prejudices between neighbors. In the words of Eyal, “breaking the ice to break the prejudice”. Breaking the ice between Israelis and Palestinians, between us and them. The story has to change. There can no longer be ‘the other’, we must all do the work to dissolve the fear.
The international community is responsible in part to hold the pain of our brothers and sisters in Israel-Palestine and to push for true peace. To listen to and raise the voices of ordinary people, those who are doing the hard work of walking towards peace; those who are frustrated; those who feel abandoned by the world. To hear them and to support them.
The families we visited today faced barriers in every direction. Trapped in place by a lack of reliable income, corrupt and lack of state, and blatantly permitted violence from extremist settlers. They can’t even visit the sea.
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