Building roads in Beit Jala

I have been living with a family in the small Christian town of Beit Jala for over a month now and I have become a fully integrated member of the family. My experience here so far has been extraordinary, the family has kind of adopted me, my host father now introduces me as his son whenever we meet people and my “brothers” and sister all show the same kind of care and affection. When I say my experience has been extraordinary I really mean it because in many ways I have been and continue to be so happy here. There's a diverse amount of things to do and so many friendly people here to meet. In my first week I had at least 20 invitations to have tea, coffee and a meal. It is different here to where I grew up but only in some subtle ways the Arab world is generally similar in many aspects of social structure; the people are so kind, open, honest and friendly. Its overwhelming how peaceful it is in this place. It is a nice change to my little bubble in Qatar and the UK. However all of these wonderful sights and experiences which make me so happy and pleased to be here come crashing down when the extraordinary truths start surfacing and the total shock/horror of the occupation is thrown in your face. When I say building roads in Beit Jala I do not mean the roads for Palestinians!.

In Beit Jala if you talk to anyone about the building of a road they will immediately point to the valley between the two hills that makes up the height of the town. Here -cutting right through the middle of Palestinian land- is a huge highway and a tunnel under the hills. This road is known around here as the apartheid road and is famous in the area for several reasons; when it was first constructed many Palestinians lost part of their land and some lost their lives in retaliations for the occasions in which Jewish Israeli civilians were shot while travelling on the road. Since then Israel has maintained military presence in Beit Jala and there is a big military base here called the DCO at the top which looks out over the town while below on the road a huge ugly grey wall is being erected to “protect” the people travelling on the road.
This road, by the way, is not open to Arabs but only to Israeli citizens wishing to travel from Jerusalem to the illegal settlements of Efrat and Har Gilo. The building of the wall to segregate Palestinians from the road is just one of many effects of the wall. It pretty much divides or will divide on completion Beit Jala in two halves and once this occurs people will lose access to the hospital on one side of the town and will lose connection with people on the other side of the valley. It truly is heart breaking to see this being done to a place which I now call home! The wall will eventually surround Beit Jala and then allow for more land to be confiscated and added to the new illegal settlements being built on the other side of the hills.
I attended a peaceful protest against the wall construction and land confiscation one Sunday and I was almost blown away literally by the force used by the Israeli military in imposing a closed military zone using tear gas and sound bombs sometimes against children! The people here are prisoners in their own homes. I was even more shocked to learn that just 3 months ago -because my family's house sits on the side of one of the hills- the Israeli soldiers took the house from them, kept my family prisoner and used the house as a lookout post over the road while they built the wall for 2 weeks. All of this is heartbreaking to see in such a peaceful town filled with ancient history. In Beit Jala there are several churches many of them holding different names of the differing saints in Christianity. The scenery here would be truly a wonder if not for that road building and ugly grey wall!

Submitted by AR