Monday 12th July 2010 - day 4 of youth trip to Israel and Palestine

Today was another very long day for us.  We left early from the village of Al-Ma'sara near Bethlehem to Sderot near Gaza, were we started a day in the company of members of the mixed Israeli-Palestinian organisation Combatants for Peace.

They showed us around in and around the city of Sderot, a small city in Israel which is very near Gaza (we have seen the Gaza strip from there) and which has been attacked regularly with the so-called kassam-rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.  The city has equipped itself with shelters allover in order to protect itself from these attacks.

The Israeli members of Combatants for Peace live in and around Sderot and gave us a very critical tour of the city.  It is impressive how they continue to want to develop a serious dialogue and cooperation with Palestinians, even though they live where they live and experience what they experience.  

Together with them we travelled back into the Westbank to the South Mount Hebron area and a village called Simia.  In this village, which is surrounded by jewish settlements, we could assist to one of the regular meetings between Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, all members of the same organisation, Combatants for Peace.  It was clear what effect their collective actions had on these people: it gives them very concrete hope for a future without conflict, because they know eachother well and can imagine living peacefully together in a one or two-state future.  

David, Nurit, Oren and Adi are the Israeli members we have met.  Faran, Hussein and Kader are the Palestinian members we met.  Together with many others, they develop almost weekly actions and activities.  Some of them are related to problems which the Palestinians experience with settlers in their villages (roadblocks, watercuts,...) and others are more recreational, such as allowing Palestinians with their families to come into Israel to spend time at the sea or visit other places.  Close friendships have developed between these people over the last years.  Great to witness as the 'third party' people we are.

Tonight we spend the evening in a youth hostel in Be'er Sheva, after having dinner in a kibbuts nearby this city.