About forty settlers came to the old military base at Oush Grab on Friday 30th May
(see for story about Oush Grab my previous posting!)
We were about 10 people playing some Paidia games when the settlers appeared on the top of the hill of the old military base. Some of them came down and started making graffitix92s over our murals. Some of them came down to talk with us and they were very confused about what we were doing there. There were a couple of them wearing guns. Most of them were Americans, middle aged, now living in the settlements of Kiryat Arba and Gush Etzion.
What do they want? According to them they want to create a settler outpost to prevent the Municipality of Beit Sahour from building a childrenx92s hospital cause they are afraid for a new Arab neighborhood!
See:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/147463
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/126162
http://womeningreen.org/?s=shdema
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zieRkqkZLHc
In the week after the settlers ruined our beautiful wall paintings, we went back to Oush Grab and with a group of about 15 people we re-painted the place and made it look more beautiful than before! You can see us at work on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24471684@N07/sets/72157604072599879/
Last Friday we organized a Bingo at Oush Grab!
It was a very warm morning, the start of a very hot day! We arrived by 8am and prepared for the arrival of our guests who were asked to pay 2 shekels to join the Bingo event. In case the settlers would arrive we would cordially invite them to our bingo game, if they would be willing to pay the two shekel. Otherwise they would be welcome to watch, but not join our eventx85
Around 9am we had a group of 40 international and Palestinian participants and we started our first round of bingo! It took a while before the first winner shouted "BINGO" and from the table of presents he chose the DVD with dabka music !
By this time three Israeli soldier had arrived. They didnx92t come down the hill, but they spoke with the guys who were selling the tickets at the entrance of the site. One of them (who was wearing a mushroom shaped hat over his helmet!!) could see the humor of it all, but the other one kept repeating that x91this is not funnyx92 and x91we will see how we will make an end to this circusx92.
We kept on playing bingo for another hour, til we received a message from the mayor of Beit Sahour that we should leave Oush Grab as he had received a phone call from the military, probably with some threats or promises towards what would happen if we stayed there.
The settlers didnx92t show up the rest of the day, hamdullilah ! so we will not have to paint again next week! We will, however, continue our activities at Oush Grab and get more and more people involved and acquainted with this beautiful place on the outskirts of Beit Sahour!
See for pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24471684@N07/sets/72157604072599879/