Humble Mumbles   /     33. Walking with Maya through an Israeli settlement in the West Bank

In episode 3 of the ‘Foreigners in Palestine’ series, our rubbernecking wide-eyed war reporter travels to Hebron, where she meets the luminously seen-it-all Maya, a 19-year-old Danish woman working with the Palestinian group Youth Against Settlements.

“Can I just ask you a question: does it seem at all scary knowing that someone got killed there before–or is it not even because people get killed everywhere?” – Rebecca, agape American

“Well, we went up to Tel Rumeida once and nearly got arrested again because the soldier knew me and we weren’t supposed to be there, and Jawad showed us a bullet hole from… the Palestinian who was shot on the ground recently, so…” – Maya, capable Dane

In this episode, Maya talks about her experiences in Hebron, interacting with soldiers at checkpoints, taking part in nonviolent demonstrations that incur violent reprisals, helping to organize the Open Shuhadah Street Campaign, witnessing multiple arrests of Youth Against Settlements (YAS) founder Issa Amro as well as that of 16-year-old Ahmad Azza, the disrupted commemoration of teenager Hadeel Hashlamoun after she was killed at Checkpoint 56….

We also hear about her experiences with notorious Hebron settlers, one known to yell “go to Auschwitz!” to Palestinians and foreigners, drive her car into crowds of protesting Palestinians and, on one occasion, chase Maya down the street; another drives around in an ambulance harassing people and preventing injured Palestinians from getting medical treatment…

A few of the places Maya and Rebecca walk through in this episode include: three Israeli settlements, Checkpoint 56, Hebron’s Old City and Shuhadah Street, a major thoroughfare now off limits to Palestinians (“Palestinians live here but they can’t use their front door, because they were welded shut by Israelis in ~2006… there’s a woman living up in one of those houses; her front door was welded shut while the family was still inside so they had to make a new door the same day in the back of the house”).