Somewhere between the Jordanian border and the Green Line, we'll call it Kiryat M'uyamim, night before last, IDF/Police officers rousted out two families at 3 a.m. Their belongings were cast out and tractors and bulldozers destroyed the small hovels that they had built with their own hands. There was no advance warning of this. Neighbors took the unfortunate families in, and the next day everyone went to work.
I was in Kiryat M'uyamim last night. At dark, a cement mixer descended the hill towards Kiryat M'uyamim, along with a procession of several small cars. My wife, young son and I followed them down the hill and quickly got a ride.
On the smaller, adjacent hill of Kiryat M'uyamim, on a ledge further down an embankment, a small flat area had been smoothed over, marked off with rope, enclosed within a makeshift partition of boards and rocks, and the floor of the enclosed area covered with a network of rebar, some of it straight, some of it bent into odd shapes. A chute was set up under the cement mixer, and a crowd of men, boys and women gathered round, waiting for the cement to pour.
Those men with long boots on waited with gardening hoes, plastic buckets, broad swaths of plywood and other makeshift tools. The concrete poured, and the men in the boots hastened to spread the mixture evenly throughout the enclosure. Slowly the enclosure filled up with the cement, and one of the men took off his boots and told the older boys to line up and each take a turn spreading.
The boys whooped with excitement, and lined up, eagerly taking off their shoes. My son was in the back of the line, because he's only eight. Some boys had to be repeatedly ordered to give the next one a turn, so absorbed were they with the work. Women filmed the progress with digital cameras.
Before all the boys got a turn, however, the cement truck pulled away and two men with a large plank and two long handles took over, meticulously plumbing the fresh-poured mixture, trying to give it an even consistency. The entire undertaking lasted for about an hour, during which a military-green jeep with a light on its roof hovered around on the road above us.
People still watched, but nearby one of the residents, a musician, also under threat, was going to give a free concert in protest against the bulldozing, so my son and I finally climbed up the embankment and waited for the show to begin.
My son asked me if what we had witnessed was like when he stands up to bullies at school. I told him that it was the very same thing, only the bullies are bigger, and their threats are much more real.
I'll stand with those dispossessed families any day, and help lay foundations with them any night.
Thank you for taking the time to format, you’re thoughtful.
Thanks, Eleutheria5 for taking the time to report this story to us, as it’s true...this isn’t what we see on TV or read about in MSM.
Sad state of affairs in the world these days.