Qawawis

End of June, 2005
By M.

Settlers brought their sheep to graze on land belonging to Qawawis. The villagers called the police who did not seem interested. After about 40 minutes a jeep with 5 soldiers showed up. Some men in the village started to talk with them but the soldiers refused to speak with them. They then asked me to speak with them. I asked them why they had come and what they were doing there. They were not happy to speak with me. They pretended not to know English but two of them did.

They first just answered stupid answers like “we are here because it is nice to be in the sun”. Then they said things like “this is Israel, our country, we are here to protect the settlers” and they even said that the people of the village were terrorists.

I’ve got the feeling that they wanted to show their power to do what they want and their contempt for the villagers. They seemed to enjoy seeing the people of the village worried.

After about 40 minutes two settlers came by car. They had a video camera, and were filming the people and the village the whole time.

I went into the house and took some pictures of the soldiers and settlers from there.

The soldiers left a few minutes after they had arrived, and they said they would come back later, but did not say any reason.