Day 3 - North to South

A very political day. We started with a tour given by Lydia Aisenberg of the Givat Haviva organization which is working for the reunification of Palestinian families separated by either the Green Line or the Security Fence. She is a Welsh immigrant from the 1980's and is working to fix the inequities resulting from arbitrary and semi-arbitrary border lines. We toured the places where the security fence bent in funny ways to include some Israeli villages/settlements within the security zone, but well outside the Green Line of the 1948 borders. We also went to East & West Baarta, which is a town split in 2 by the green line. The line was drawn by diplomats in Cyprus to go through a valley, but they didn't know (or maybe care) that there was a town there. We saw the ditch which used to be the border, and how the border literally went down the center of a street. Since then, it has grown to a sizable town, with kids intermingling from both sides. The problems arize when other family members are on the "wrong" side of the line.
As far as the fence itself, she seemed of 2 minds about it. She acknowledged that the number of bombings and terrorist acts had decreased significantly since its erection, but complained that it was indeed a barrier to peace. I understand her thoughts about the tortured twists and turns the fence takes (and it really is a fence for 95% of its length) and acknowledged that the Israelis have dismantled 4 towns on the "wrong" side of the fence and moved those residents. This is really a very complex issue, which seems far beyond the politicians who want to proceed along broad general lines. Here, they are talking about yards.
We drove south along Highway 6 which parallels the portion where there is a real wall, made of cement approximately 30 feet high. On the Israeli side, there is a berm to within a few feet of the top, but it is 30 feet high on the other side.
South, South, South through a sandstorm which obliterated the sun and made for a lot of haze. We came to Sderot, which is a stone's throw (or a Kessem Rocket's ride) from Gaza. There haven't been any rockets in over a year now, but the people have shelters all over town. The bus stops have cement bunkers. The schools have bunkers. The apartment complexes have bunkers. When the alarm sounds, the people have 20 seconds to get to protection. We stopped at a community center for kids, adults and elders. The kids who were there mugged for the cameras and had a good time. They were interested in my unipod for the camera, not having seen one before. The people we talked to had different reactions to being so close to Gaza. Many cannot leave as they really have no place to go. This is not a rich town at all. Some had a typical Israeli attitude of "We'll survive and go on", but they have many programs (organized by the government and by the Joint Distribution Committee) to provide stress counseling. Interesting.
Then further south past Be'er Sheva to Ramon where we will see the crater tomorrow. The temperature has gone up by about 20 degrees. Tshirts and shorts.