[post-dated: 21/08/07 ]

After a day of walking the hills of Susiya, visiting with families spread throughout and suffering from the settlers and army surrounding, we are in the tent of Hajji Sara. She is a strong woman with prominent features: a strong, angular nose; defined cheekbones; a broad smile. She, like her deceased husband, takes on the arrogance of authoritarian soldiers with a fiery defiance. She doesn’t back down from their threats.

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*photo: Eva Bartlett

Hajji Sara called us in from the road a few weeks ago. She called us for tea, but re-appeared with tomatoes, eggs, fresh flat-bread, cheese….One girl asked to take Hajji Sara’s photo. She stood up, grabbed a cloth, and fastened a lovely white embroidered scarf around her face, proud and wanting to look her best.

We sit around the gas lantern and banter. We are told of Hajji Sara’s husband, who was undaunted by the surrounding settlers and soldiers:

“Hajj Jaber was very strong-willed. He defied the settlers and police, defied the odds, and the Occupation as well.

He didn’t recognize “closed military zones” –areas off-limits to Palestinians –on his land and proudly marched around his sheep all over his land.

Soldiers took him far away, beyond Tuwani, and threw him out of the jeep. He came back on foot.

He made settlers and soldiers angry, he wasn’t afraid of them. He walked on the settler-soldier road cutting through Palestinian land, amongst his sheep, and when a settler car or military jeep honked for him to move, he defiantly told them it was his land and he would walk amidst his sheep.

They danced and cheered when he died. They clapped and celebrated his death.

He was 75 when he died.”

I go to sleep at the edge of the open-walled tent, beside a grove of olive trees and under a flurry of stars. A dog with a strange bark has finally called it quits, the pregnant cat has stopped rubbing against me, and a light breeze wanders through the trees and into the tent, brushing aside bugs and bringing fresh scents.