Brenna on the guitar.
 

On November 19-21, Brenna, David, and Martha visited the cave dwellers in Tuba by way of At Tuwani.

We arrived at the CPT house in At Tuwani in early afternoon. From there, we visited Hafez Hreini, the local coordinator for nonviolent resistance to Israeli military occupation. Hafez described his plan to run a regional Alternatives to Violence Project training in At Tuwani. (See http://www.avpusa.org/ for the U.S. branch of AVP). He was proud to show us his fresh diploma certifying that he has passed the Basic, Advanced, and Training for Trainers levels of AVP.  Among the principles of the project are: 

1. Expect the best

2. Respect yourself

3. Think before you act, and

4. Ask for a nonviolent solution.

Searching for a way to bring hope to the people of Susiya and At Tuwani, Hafez ran a summer camp that brought fifteen Israeli children and their parents to At Tuwani for two days to interact with local Palestinian children and their parents. At the end of the camp, he took them to local communities like the people of Susiya who live in tents because the Israeli army has destroyed their houses.  At first he was afraid that the Palestinians wouldn’t accept the Israelis, but in fact they were very hospitable.

While Hafez prepared supper for us, we returned to the CPT home, where Brenna brought their forlorn guitar to life and sparked a songfest.
 

Brenna and Martha pathfinding.

Returning to Hafez’s house, we enjoyed a supper of lentil soup, delicious local olives, bread, local olive oil, onion slices, and tea. The local olives put commercial olives to shame. Hafez brought in a laptop computer and entertained us with videos and photos of Israeli settler and soldier harassment of Palestinians, as well as a tendentious video from Israeli television that misrepresented what he had told them in an interview.

The next morning, we joined the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) as they climbed a hill to verify that the IDF soldiers were indeed present to escort children from Tuba to school in At Tuwani, to protect the children from attacks by the Israeli settlers, whose presence in the Tuwani area is illegal according to International Law. The Israeli Knesset established this project for the IDF after settlers attacked two internationals who were accompanying the children, puncturing one’s lung and breaking the other’s arm. CPT told us that the soldiers show up as directed about 90% of the time, but they are on time only about 50% of the time. When they fail to show up on time, CPT phones to inquire, sometimes several times. If they are an hour late in the morning, the children take an alternate and longer route, arriving hours late for school. If soldiers fail to show up in the evening, the children don’t get home that day. [http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Regions/Middle-East-and-North-Africa/Israel-and-the-Occupied-Territories]

Once CPT had verified that the soldiers were present, they showed us how we could walk to Tuba mostly out of sight of the settlement—a route that involved a lot of down and up rocky hills, with no clear path to follow. The road the children follow, which runs between the Jewish settlement and its outpost, takes about 15 minutes to walk, but only the children are allowed to use it, and only on their way to and from school. Although this road is the original route from Tuba to At Tuwani, since the illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’on was established in 1984, and the illegal outpost was set up beside it in more recent years, it has become much too dangerous for Palestinians, or even Internationals, to use the path, which runs between the two. To avoid violent attacks by settlers, we were advised to take the “middle route.” Though we were told that the it should take an hour, it took us two. The “long route,” which is safest, normally takes Palestinians two hours to travel.
 

Making room for guests.

The Tuba watchdogs announced our arrival. Welcoming us in their cave, Omar and family set to work shifting large sacks of animal feed to make room for their new guests.

We welcomed the cave’s shelter from the cold and piercing wind. I noted electric wiring and a single bulb, but saw no signs of where the current might come from, and no one turned on the light.
 

Dinner: the broom, or the gazelle?

Poking around the complex, I (David) noted a solid, cement outhouse with bird houses on its roof. Brenna was delighted to see a “pet” gazelle in a pen by the front door. She was later disappointed to hear that the family would probably eat the creature when it was properly fattened. Chickens, sheep, and goats wandered around. A couple of donkeys were tethered.

Back in the cave, Martha wondered whether the cave floor was cement. I hesitated to comment that it was probably compacted sheep dung. Zahree, Omar’s wife, swept it with a handle-less broom. (Later, I saw the gazelle contemplating whether or not to eat the broom). Omar proudly announced that he had six sons and four daughters. Based on the children swarming around, the number seemed understated. While Brenna and Martha swapped English and Arabic with the children, I folded an origami bird that flaps its wings. Brenna then made a paper ball she blew up. Omar requested a plane, so I folded two and he folded one—which he called his F-16. Aerodynamics in the still air of the cave were pretty good, except when they weren’t.

Goat & sheep food and . . . .

...fuel for the fire.

Zahree served us lunch: scrambled eggs, fresh bread, and a dip. About that time, the school children returned. We went out to take pictures of the process. With my 18-x zoom lens, I took an excellent picture of the children with the soldiers. As I proudly showed the picture to the children and adults, someone pressed “delete” on the camera. I then confused the messages (yes/no) and obliterated the picture. Fortunately, that gave me the motivation to take another the next morning as the children went to school.

Omar then invited me to follow him, while Brenna and Martha stayed in the cave. Taking an adze, he chopped several thorn bushes out of the ground. Since the sheep and goats eat the bushes, I wondered why he would uproot them. Later, I found out that Zahree uses them as fuel for cooking.

Loving care for creation

Then Omar led me to a natural cave. Reaching into a cleft in the rock, he brought out a baby bird in the palm of his hand, then carefully put it back. Next, he showed me a well, where he drew several buckets full of water to fill a watering trough. His love for the land and its life-forms was evident.

Family time in a Tuba cave

Back in the cave, kerosene lamps were lighted. After an evening meal of bread and soft noodles cooked in something indescribable, some of the children did their homework by the flickering light. As it was cold and dark, we were not tempted to stay up late.

The next morning, I watched the family mix several sacks of feed together and pour it into feeding troughs for the sheep. After the sheep and goats had swarmed over the troughs for a few minutes, the chickens poked around the few grains that were left on the ground and in the troughs. Occasionally one of the sheep would wander into the cave, to be summarily ejected.

Children walk between settlement and outpost,

guarded by IDF soldiers.

Then it was time for the children to go to school. Omar’s children and those from nearby families assembled near the tents, then disassembled as one after the other remembered something forgotten and ran home to get it. Finally, they set out, pursued by the final straggler. In the distance, we watched soldiers and a jeep meet them and accompany them. We phoned the CPT watchers to report that the children were safely on their way, and that we ourselves were setting out.

Then Omar led us by a shorter, but riskier, route than we had used the day before. The return trip to At Tuwani took us one hour.