David Rolstone's Letters from Palestine

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Monday, 8 December 2003 - Dave in Nablus

Dear All,

Things are really easy here at the moment, the army is very quiet and there are very few checkpoints actually working. I took a back road into Nablus last night and saw no sign of them! It was dark so perhaps they ware fast asleep! The fence at Jayus is now complete. It's something like the high security fence at Faslane with a perimeter road following it. It snakes through the countryside cutting a raw swath through the ancient olive groves. On the Palestinian side of the fence is a wide area of flattened bare earth, then rolls and rolls of razer wire and outside of that a considerable ditch. The fence itself is about the same height as at Faslane but has an extension of light wires making it much higher. On the far side is an immaculate road, what a pity that all this money from the US is not spent building peace and alleviating the intense poverty here in the West Bank.

I got up early on the day of the ISM meeting and went to the South Gate (yes they have north and south gates here!) to see it opened for the family who have been cut off from the village and now have to pass through the gate to go to school. Every morning the mother and four children arrive at 7:15 on the dot as they did yesterday, two army jeeps passed without opening the gate.

Eventually at 8:30 they came and opened it an hour and 15 minutes late. I was glad to hear the mother giving the soldiers a hard time for their tardy behavior.

Found a taxi last night to bring me across Nablus to Balata Refuge Camp so only got a brief glimpse of the city but I was extremely pleased to drive past the Makatah were we had removed the road block last January and to see that it had not been replaced in fact it looked as though the road had been resurfaced!

Will give you a more detailed account later once I have walked up to Nablus, All for now,

Peace and bright moments,
Dave.

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