Arwa's Visa Approved
11 Aug 08
Wonderful news !! Arwa’s visa appeal was approved. We don’t have to pay another £515 to apply again. I need to take her passport to Jerusalem and hopefully they will give her the visa soon. God willing we can come to England around 10th Oct.
More good news !! Fatima and Mohammad who were evicted from their home in the Old City have had a baby boy who looks very fit and healthy. Fatima had an awful time of it. She also had a gall stone that needed to be removed but they had to wait until the baby had been born. Then they were asking her to wait until November unless she had the money to get the operation done privately. Arwa managed to pull some strings with the officials and she has had the operation already and not had to pay. She has been in terrible pain but she seemed fine when we saw her last night. Very happy and proud !
They are back in some of the rooms of their house. Mohammad got fed up with fruitless negotiations with the DCO and cut 3 of the rooms open himself. So they are back in the kitchen and living room and have access to their belongings again. The Israelis offered them 150,000 NIS to leave and are now threatening to evict them from the whole house in a months time.
Isaac, my son has been with us for a week which was wonderful but too short. He has a few more days in Israel visiting friends and then back to India for his final year at the United World College.
The soldiers are giving every one an awful time. Endless road blocks and detentions. Isaac and I went to a festival in the school at At Tawani to celebrate the end of their summer school. We saw the road block which I helped to remove 6 months ago back and bigger than ever. Soldiers were waiting for us there and refused to let us into the village. Closed Military Zone. No reason given. We argued a bit and attempted to sneak through when they were disrtracted but they would have none of it. Quite polite but firm. So we set off back to Yatta and walked an hour around the hills and into the village that way. It was a bit hairy when we crossed the settler road because we had seen a lot of army vehicles passing by but no one saw us. Most of the time we were able to walk quietly through the olive groves. As we approached the village we saw 3 army vehicles on the opposite hill and they spotted us with binoculars but were too far away to do anything about it.
We missed most of the festivities of course; just caught the last dance and the thank you speech. We waited with CPT at their “house”until the soldiers had left. Then we set off home with Zoleka, our neighbour. When we got to the road block there was a big army bulldozer next to it and 2 soldiers. We feared the worst but they had been given orders to REMOVE the road block. We could not believe it. No explanation offered of course, just “orders”. So I filmed them shifting these enormous rocks and opening the road up again. Who said Israeli soldiers are good for nothing ? I said to Zoleka I will travel with her again if she always gets the road opened for her !
We are short of money but getting by. If anyone wants to help out with a donation that would be appreciated. We got ourselves a table today and will get some chairs tomorrow.
