The House On The Hill In Al Khadr

No one likes a sob story. People want to hear good news.

In my trip to the West Bank in the Middle East I was fortunate to visit a family that lived in a place called Al Khadr.  Al Khadr is a small village on the outskirts of Bethlehem.




In the map you can see that yellow road.  I remember walking up to an area in the outskirts of Al Khadr which was set in beautiful rolling hills, with a cool breeze.  Back to that yellow road, on the Al Khadr side there is a huge wall surrounding al Khadr that has been built to keep Palestinians out of Israel.  You can see the wall in the picture below;

In this ideallic setting there is a watchtower with cameras that watch across the Palestinian side of this wall.  As you look at the picture above I am sure that you will agree that it would be a beautiful site if it wasn't for the wall and watch tower.

The land that this is built upon from which I took this photo belongs to a family that has owned this land for generations.  The day before I visited this family they lived in their own home living off the land with a bore whole for a water supply next to it.  There were many children in this family with a new born.

With an hour's notice, that family was told to leave the house as it was going to be knocked down by the Israeli Defence Force to make way for an illegal settlement for Israeli citizens that had just moved into the country.

Please help me to reach my fundraising goal of £1000 For Amos Trust

What was their home became a pile of rubble and that family were displaced despite their land being in their possession for generations.  The Israeli Defence Force even filled in the borehole so as to force the family to move on.

The lad in the photo below showed me around.

The demolished home of this Palestinian family.

The children were forced to live in tents.

The children showed me the coverage of their situation in the local newspaper.

This is the site of their only drinking water source, filled in courtesy of the Israeli Defence Force.

I sat down with the boy in the first picture as he explained in Arabic about what happened to his family.  He didn't even sound angry, he sounded hurt, tired, flat.  His tone of voice (despite my lack of Arabic ability) spoke volumes of the hardship he had experienced.  It took all my effort to not to fall apart weeping for this family.

A year an a bit on from then, I am pleased to say that Amos Trust made a difference to that family by helping to rebuild their home in peaceful protest to the Israeli Defence Force.  It was a huge risk for the volunteers and builders that did the work.  They could have been arrested and worse still , the Israeli Defence Force could have demolished the house again.

In a later blog I will give you an update on how that project went.

For now, please do consider my motivation for jumping out of a plane to support this work and click the banner below to help me to raise £1000 for Amos so that they can help more families to gain justice in the West Bank.

Thanks!

The Children Of Hebron

In recent years I have found that I have been increasingly more concerned personally and professionally about the welfare of children.

In my trips to Durban and Palestine, this was particularly pertinent, hence the skydive in July this year.

I was inspired in Palestine to write some poetry as I found that it condensed my thoughts really well about what I was seeing.  As I share my blog posts you will see some of these pieces as they explain what I saw better than what I could write now.  I felt raw at the time and the poetry brings back that feeling for me.

In Hebron, West Bank,  I walked through the market area a long covered street through the middle of the town.  I say it was covered because when I looked up there was a net and on that net was a load of rubbish.

What was happening here was that in the apartments at the top of the buildings, Palestinian families had been evicted from their homes and were replaced by Israeli settlers.  The settlers seem to all be orthodox Zionist Jews who believe that this land is theirs.  I don't have a problem with their religion or beliefs, but I have a problem with the way that they treat the Palestinians.

Back to that netting.... The reason for the netting being there is so that the rubbish being thrown out of the windows of the now settler owned apartments, can be caught and not allowed to fall on the people below in the market.

If I throw rubbish at someone here in the UK, I am pretty sure that they wouldn't like it and might even get the Police involved.  In Hebron, this behaviour (and other strategies for trying to push out the Palestinians) is protected by the Israeli Defense Force.  It would seem that Palestinians have no rights.
For me, I am saddened that there are kids living in this mess.  All around them is conflict, hate, distrust.  What kind of life is that for a child?  Lots of the kids I came across where selling trinkets on the market to make money for their families.

Please share this blog if you like the poetry, not for my benefit but because I hope that it will help others to understand more about the issues facing Palestinians and this of course means their children too.

Your sponsorship will change children's lives for the better.