Nina, Phil
About 4 am, Abdullah woke us up and said there were soldiers in the village. Both of us went up on to the roof to listen to the phone conversation he was having people in one of the houses. It was down the road that is close to the construction and had been invaded. The soldiers told the people that shabob were throwing stones from the roof and, if they caught them throwing stones again, or even caught them near the wall, they would come back and burn the house down.
About ten minutes later, someone else called and said the soldiers were now at the supermarket, which is quite a ways into the village. We got in the car, drove down to the supermarket, and got out to talk to the soldiers.
However, when they saw us, they began to walk away very quickly, back toward the wall construction. We walked behind them, following them past the house that had been invaded, and they then disappeared down the road.
The villagers are more comfortable having internationals in Bil’in, because there appear to be fewer invasions into the village while we are here.